Abstract

The effect of aqueous stem bark extract of Jatropha curcas in mice infected with Plasmodium berghei was investigated. Ninety mice divided into six groups of fifteen were used for the study. Group 1 served as normal control, group 2 was inoculated with 0.2 ml of 1.0 x 107 infected erythrocytes containing Plasmodium berghei as negative control, Groups 3, 4 and 5 were infected and treated with 250, 500 and 750 mg/kg body weight aqueous stem bark extract of Jatropha curcas respectively while Group 6 were infected and treated with arthemether (20 mg/kg body weight) for fourteen days. The infected untreated showed a significant decrease(p<0.05) in packed cell volume(PCV),  red blood cells (RBCs), haemoglobin(HB), white blood cells (WBCs), and platelet count from day 7 to day 14 compared with normal control (p<0.05).However, treatment with the aqueous stem bark extract of Jatropha curcas  and arthemether caused a significant increase (p<0.05) in RBCs, PCV  and  platelet levels reduced by infection compared to untreated control group (p<0.05). Also, there was no significant (p<0.05) difference between the extract-treated and the arthemether-treated groups 3, 4, 5 and group 6 respectively from the normal control group (p<0.05). Since our findings had shown that there were improvements in all the haematological indices for the infected and treated groups, this suggests that the plant extract of Jatropha curcas possess some protective properties against malaria parasites.