Journal of School of Public Health and

Owing to importance of employing native and traditional medicinal plants with good efficacy against malaria parasites, an ethanolic extract of Peganum harmala L. was tested on Plasmodium berghei in sourian mice and a comparison was made with the effect of chloroquine on the same parasite. In this study 56 sourian mice were divided into 8 groups, each consisting of seven animals. The first 7 groups were infected with P. berghei and the last group was used as control. The first seven groups were given chloroquine, Peganum harmala at four different concentrations (20, 100, 300, 600 mg/kg) and placebo, respectively and the seventh group did not receive any treatment. The evaluation was done by Rane test. In each group the level of parasitaemia was determined on days 4 & 7, and compared with values from Day 0 (just before treatment) in order to record the decline in parasitaemia in treated groups. Results were analysed using SPSS soft ware and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicated that, although all the four concentrations of the Peganum harmala extract significantly reduced parasitaemia in the infected subjects, the 100 mg/kg solution showed optimal effectiveness on the parasites in comparison with other concentrations and the no-treatment option. We conclude that although the ethanolic extract of peganum harmala is not as effective as chloroquine in reducing parasitaemia, it can nonetheless cause a significant decrease when compared to control and placebo groups.