Antimalarial Properties Of Antiplasmodial Activity

It is the oldest and still extensively used in many parts of the world today. Herbal medicines played an important role in maintaining the human health for thousands of years, and have gained growing popularity and extensive usage in the world over the last decades5. Using plants as medicine provides remarkable advantages for treating many conditions5. Different parts of the plant provides certain therapeutic effects therefore, it can be used to treat many different diseases. They are usually sold as tablets, capsules, powders, teas, or even as dried plants6. Pharmaceutical drugs contain specific active constituents, while herbal medicines contain relatively unprocessed mixtures of phytochemical constituents and their holistic efficacy is usually produced by the unresolved integrative effects between the constituents

Pamaquine (Figure 2.5b) is an 8-aminoquinoline, synthesized based on the structure of methylene blue (Figure 2.5a). It is the first antimalarial drug that has activity against liver stage parasites, and can prevent the relapse of P. vivax malaria. Although pamaquine can delay the first attachment of malaria, it is an incomplete protection. So at that time, pamaquine was usually combined with quinine to treat malaria. However, pamaquine was reported with severe toxicological concerns, relating with glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, and it is not as efficient as primaquine. Because of these problems, pamaquine is no longer used.

Malaria is a life threatening disease that has been around for for centuries. Throughout history, medicinal properties in plants have been used by many civilizations. Evidence of this has been documented in the China Academy of Chinese Medicinal Sciences in the Handbook for Prescriptions for Emergencies by Ge Hong written circa 284-346 CE (Tu, 2011). In this handbook there is a detailed explanation on how to prepare the qinghaosu as a medicinal remedy for malaria. It should come as no surprise that the plant Artemisia annua L. has medicinal qualities as many of the medications on the market today are plant based. Aspirin is derived from the bark of salix (willow), throat lozenges are derived from the leaves of mentha (mint), therefore it is no surprise that antimalarial medications are also plant based (Plant Medicines, 2006).

Malaria is a parasitic infection, transmitted by the bite of the infected female Anopheles mosquito. Five types of plasmodia cause the disease to humans: Plasmodium (P.) falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae and P. knowlesi. The most common symptoms of malaria are, chills, high fever, malaise, headache sweating and muscle aches, manifest 1-4 weeks after infection with the parasite, while relapses of the disease are usually observed in short intervals but up to 5 and in extreme cases even up to 8 years in P. vivax infections (Walker and Colledge 2014; ). A number of effective anti-malaria drugs are available to treat the infection. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment is essential to forestall complications.

Facilitated largely by increased political commitment, an up-scaling of World Health Organisation (WHO) vector control measures and expansion of the so-called “artemisinin-based combination therapies”, the past decade has seen remarkable progress in the global effort against malaria. In fact, latest figures approximate that global investments in malaria control have amassed to a 42% reduction in the diseases’ mortality rate between 2000 and 2012, saving an estimated 3.3 million lives during this period.1 Additionally, malaria incidence rates declined by 25% worldwide, in the same epoch, and by 31% in the African region – the epicentre of disease’s devastation on humanity.1

Vaccines are crucial components to put an end to Malaria. The process of eradicating Malaria starts with studying Plasmodium falciparum. People have supportedthe efforts of trying to decrease the intensity of the disease, but if malaria vaccines are to be used as part of a tool for the eradication of malaria, they will need to have an impact on malaria transmission. They’ve brought us the concept of “vaccines that stops malaria transmission”.Transmission-blocking vaccines target the sexual and mosquito stages but also the asexual stage vaccines that have an effect on transmission.Vaccines have also been useful for sustained control of diseases.

Despite the information that has been presented, data shows that malaria infection and mortality rates have been decreasing worldwide for several years. The number of patient deaths due to malaria has decreased by 47% in the last ten years. Since 2000, infection prevalence in children 2-10 years old dropped from 26% to 14% and total prevalence fell from 173 million to 128 million worldwide (WHO, 2014). A goal the Gates Foundation has had since 2007 is the eradication of malaria and the decreasing mortality rates has been partly due to their support of research for and prevention of malaria (Gates, 2014).

Herbal medicine means usage of plants for the promotion of healing and maintenance of health. The knowledge of traditional medicine and use of plants as medicine is the important component of healthcare system. Natural resources are very rich in India. About 1,500 medicinal plants are identified and of which 500 plants are commonly used [h-d (2007), (2001)3]. Today most of the people use herbal drugs along with prescription and non prescription drugs. Although they are considered as natural many of them interact with other medications and cause either dangerous side effect and / or reduced benefits from the medications. Presently, a very little information published on herbal drug interactions even though, the use of herbs is progressively

Plants provide nutritional factors to the human body. Fruits and vegetables are good for our health. But aside from eating or make it a dessert it is also the main source of drugs that is being use from the ancient times as herbal remedies for the health care, prevention and cure of various diseases and ailments. Use of various plants parts like its bark, flowers, fruit, seeds, roots, leaves or let’s say the whole plant as such for medical purpose is been a long tradition in different culture. Use of plants as a medicine is being used by the Filipino. Our ancestors used plants as their medicine when they get sick because that time no ready-made medicine is available so they need to use the parts of plants as cure for their illnesses. Plants

It is estimated that 35,000 to 70,000 species have, at one time or another, been used in some cultures for medicinal purposes. Herbal medicines have long earned reputation as the people's medicines because of their easy accessibility, low cost and the ease with which they can be prepared (Ghani, 2013). These medicines are cheaper, exhibit a remarkable efficacy in the treatment of various ailments and are much safer with least side effects as compared to allopathic medicines (Idu et al., 2007; Mann et al., 2008; Ammara et al., 2009). Herbal medicine is now gradually scorning a more mainstream method of treatment in many countries of the world because of improvements in the methods of analysis and quality control of herbs and herbal drugs along with advances in clinical research. Their efficacy and safety are continuously bringing light and value to herbal medicines in the prevention and treatment of

World Health Organization (WHO) reported that nearly 80% of the planet’s population, exclusively in developing countries, still depends on plants for their healthcare (Gurib-Fakim, 2006). Plants, predominantly applied for their medicinal or aromatic properties in pharmacy and perfumery are categorized as medicinal and aromatic plants, respectively (Lubbe and Verpoorte, 2011). Aromatic plants have a unique aroma and flavour due to some types of compounds, known as phytochemicals or secondary metabolites (Fisher, 1992). Most of the secondary metabolites have antimicrobial activity through substances present in aromatic plants. Several classes of phytochemicals, including anthocyanins, isoflavones, flavonoids

Rusznyák and A. Szent-Györgyi were the first scientists who described the therapeutically benefits of a type of flavonoids, which were then named “vitamin P” [1]. Flavonoids are plant phytochemicals that cannot be synthesized by humans. More than 4,000 flavonoids have been identified. Flavonoids are the known to be the largest class of polyphenols, they can be classified into 6 subclasses i.e. flavones, flavonols, flavanones, catechins, isoflavones and anthocyanidins. Structurally, flavonoids are usually characterized by a C6-C3-C6 carbon skeleton. Flavonoids occur as aglycones (without sugar moieties) and glycosides (with sugar moieties). [2] Flavonoids have attracted the attention of researchers because of its anticancer, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and heart disease protective activities

Health promotion and cure diseases by using food products is renowned.Nutraceuticals are for the prevention and treatment of the disease and also for medical and health benefits.The world health market has been flooded with nutraceuticals.Alone gingerol produce toxic changes in kidney,liver,crop and proventriculus.For pain management,we have discovered a number of useful herbal derived agents.Usage of herbs can improve the liver and kidney functions.Nutraceuticals helps in the diseases like cardiovascular ,diabetes,parkinson and hypertension.the term nutraceuticals was discovered by Dr.stephen Defelice in 1989.Nutraceuticals have great importance because of their therapeutic and nutritional effects.Diet is rated more highly to maintain or achieving

Tetraoxanes (also stabilizes O–O bond), as was employed in the drug development candidate RKA 182, has displayed IC50 values of 4.9 nM against the P. falciparum 3D 7 strain and of 1.9 nM against the K1 strain (chloroquine sensitive and -resistant, respectively). It reduced P. berghei parasitemia in mice to undetectable levels 24 hours after treatment. This compound is currently in preclinical trials and although it has greater stability than OZ277, its antimalarial activity is inferior to OZ439. [8, 9]

Malaria is one of the most common blood sucking disease and a major health problem worldwide infecting 200 million and killing about 2 million people each year [2]. Rapid diagnosis and early treatment of clinical cases is central to the reduction of malarial morbidity and mortality [3]. The two diagnostic approaches currently used are clinical and microscopic examination. Clinical diagnosis of malaria alone is unreliable and should be confirmed by laboratory tests [4].