Ethnobotanical Survey and In vivo Assessment of the Antimalarial Activities of a Locally Used Medicinal Plant (Senna occidentalis) for “Malaria Suspected” Fever in Potiskum and Nangere Local Government Areas of Yobe State

Malaria is a life threatening infectious disease that has affected economic development in many parts of the world. Although preventable, malaria has claimed the lives of thousands of individuals in endemic African countries. Antimalarial drug resistance, lack of vaccines in clinical use as well as complexities of malaria parasite genomes remains a serious threat to malaria eradication efforts. The search for antimalarials from plant sources has yield significant success in drug discovery approaches. The specific objective of this study is to establish the acute toxic effect and antiplasmodial efficacy of crude methanolic leaf extract of Senna occidentalis in an in vivo assay. The four (4) days suppressive test was used in Swiss mice experimentally infected with chloroquine sensitive (CQS) Plasmodium berghei (ANKA). Results obtained revealed no lethality nor any sign of acute toxic reactions following the administration of 2000 mg/kg body weight of the extract. Percent reduction of parasite growth obtained was observed to be dose dependent in all groups treated with the herbal extract and ranges between 66% and 73%. Relative to the negative and positive control groups, a significant reduction in parasitaemia (P≤ 0.01) was observed in all groups treated with the plant extracts. A gradual increase in body weight was observed in extract treated groups throughout the period of the investigation. The antiplasmodial efficacy observed may well be attributed to the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids and other important phytochemicals present. S. occidentalis is therefore, considered a good candidate source for development of novel antimalarial drugs.