Screening of anthelmintic activity of Heritiera fomes

Abstract

Heritiera fomes is a mangrove medicinal plant which is rich of ethnomedicinal usage against helminths. At present, it is found that H. fomes is a good reservoir of compounds such as phenols, tannin, alkaloids which have the possibility to be a better source to treat helminthiasis in living organism which is a great motivation to work on this research. The moto of this finding is to check in vitro anthelmintic activity of different parts (leaf, bark, root) of H. fomes on Bangladeshi earthworms Pheretima posthuma. Albendazole was used as standard drug to compare the test result. Anthelmintic activity was showed by three concentrations of H. fomes (25mg/ml, 50mg/ml and 75mg/ml) of each extract in a dose dependent inhibition. The results have been interpreted as paralysis time and death time of the earth worms. From the obtained result it was found that bark extracts of H. fomes exhibited significant anthelmintic activity at the concentration of 75mg/ml where the paralysis time and death time of the worms is 37.67±2.52 min and 47.67±3.51 min respectively, compared to the standard albendazole. This study encapsulates the significance of H. fomes in the use for anthelmintic activity and requirement further investigation for the isolation of active constituent which is responsible for the anthelmintic activity.