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THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF TRICHOMONAS VAGINALIS TO THE LEAF AND BARK EXTRACTS OF MANGIFERA INDICA PLANT
Abstract
Trichomoniasis is the most prevalent non-viral sexually-transmitted infection in the world. A wet-mount smear to detect possible trichomonads from the specimens was prepared by placing each inoculated swab stick in vials containing Iml of normal saline. The mango plant's leaves and barks were cut out and washed with sterile distilled water. Cold extraction method was employed. The phytochemical screening was carried out in other to determine the active ingredients in the plant's extracts which could be responsible for their anti-protozoal effect. The inocula for the anti-protozoal efficacy assay were prepared using less than 24hr-old trichomonads. At the end of the study, both the trophozoite and amoeboid forms of 7. vaginalis were positively identified from the vaginal swab samples. 26 out of the 30 volunteers tested. positive for the presence of T. vaginalis parasite while the remaining four tested negative. Both extracts possess just tannins in common. In addition, the leaf extract possesses phlobatannins, anthraquinone glycosides and alkaloids while the bark extract possesses terpenoids. The trichomonads isolated were all susceptible, as demonstrated by their immobilization to both crude extracts of the plant's leaves and barks at 100mg/ml only. The minimum immobilization concentration of the leaf extract is 90mg/ml while that of the bark extract still stood at 100mg/ml. It could be deduced that the Mangifera indica leaf and bark extracts used possess anti-protozoal potency against I. vaginalis but the leaf extract was found to be more efficacious.
