ANTIMALARIA EFFECT AND BIOACTIVE COMPONENT DETERMINATION OF AQUEOUS AND ETHANOLIC LEAVE EXTRACT OF FICUS CAPENSIS

Medicinal plants have been used successfully in many parts of the world for management and treatment of disorders. Ficus capensis is a medicinal plant widely used across Africa for treating various ailments, including malaria. However, many of this medicinal uses are yet to be investigated. Hence, this study was designed to investigate the antimalarial activities of methanol and aqueous extract of fresh leaves of F capensis. The study was performed using 28 adult matured albino rats which were divided into 8 groups (I, II, III, IV, V VI, VII & VIII), each group contains 3 rats. The rats in groups III, IV & V were administered 100, 200 and 400mg/kg dose of the ethanol extract by oral administration, while animals in group VI, VII and VIII received 100, 200 and 400mg/kg dose of the Aqueous solution by oral administration for 7 consecutive days. The animals in group II served as negative control while group I served as control group. At the end of administration, Packed Cell Volume (PVC) and Parasitemia of the control group (Group I) remained stable around 60% throughout the study, the negative control group (Group II) exhibited a dramatic decrease in PCV and dramatic increase in parasitemia indicating severe infection progression without treatment. Overall, the results showed that both methanol and aqueous extract of Ficus capensis are effective in reducing parasitemia and aiding in the recovery of PCV levels in a dose-dependent manner. Higher doses of both extracts were more effective in mitigating the effects of Plasmodium berghei infection. This effect of the extract increase significantly as the dose increase. This observations suggest that the extract may be effective in treatment and management of malaria. This may partly be responsible for the application of the leaves in management and treatment of malaria.