Background: The search for antimalarial molecules from plants necessitates comparative studies of ethnomedicinal antimalarial plants to quickly identify those that may be used in further search. Therefore, the median lethal dose, LD50, and the antiplasmodial activities of the methanol extracts of the stem barks of Anthocleista vogelii, Bligha sapida, Voacanga africana, and the leaf of Momordica charantia were evaluated against Plasmodium berghei berghei-infected mice using prophylactic, chemosuppressive, and curative models to compare their activities and identify the most active for further evaluation. Methods: The plant materials were collected, authenticated, and voucher specimens were deposited at the Faculty of Pharmacy Herbarium, OAU, Ile-Ife. They were separately macerated in methanol, and the median lethal dose, LD50 determined using Lorke’s method. The percentage parasitaemia, percentage reduction, chemosuppression and clearance, survival time, and percentage survivor of each, in the three models of antiplasmodial test against Plasmodium berghei berghei infected mice were assessed. Pyrimethamine and Chloroquine were positive controls, while normal saline was a negative control. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Student Newman-Keuls post hoc test (p < 0.05) was used for the analysis of data. Results and Conclusion: The lowest prophylactic ED50 and ED90 values 304 and 624 mg/kg of AV, comparable chemosuppressive ED50 values of all extracts and the significantly (p < 0.05) lower values of ED50 and ED90 of MC and VA in the curative assay can guide the selection of the plant extract(s) for further antimalarial evaluation.
Akintunde et al. (Tue,) studied this question.