To find out the efficacy and effect of artemisinin derivatives on haematological indices, C57BL/6J mice were challenged with Plasmodium falciparum and treated with therapeutic doses of AS, AE, and AL. Course of infection was studied in the infected and treated groups up to day 42. Peak level of parasitaemia (38%) was observed on day 11 in infected group. Haematological indices indicated significant ( ) decrease in RBC, WBC, haemoglobin, packed cell volume, mean cell volume, and platelet counts in infected mice. But all the parameters were restored to normal values, and significant ( ) changes were observed in all drug-treated groups. Insignificant changes were observed for MCHC ( ) in all drug-treated groups. Percent of peak parasitaemia was much reduced in AL- (3.2% on day 3) treated group in comparison with AE- (2.4% on day 4) and AS- (4% on day 2) treated groups. Parasites were completely cleared on day 6 in AS group, day 5 in AE group, and day 4 in AL group. Hence, our results strongly support that combination therapy has high efficacy rates than monotherapy. No adverse effects were observed on haematological parameters when animals were treated with therapeutic dosages. 1. Introduction Despite advances in knowledge, malaria continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Over 40% of the world population lives in malaria-endemic areas and it is very high (20%) in severe malaria (parasitaemia > 5%). Today malaria is the most important problem for which an estimated 300–500 million cases were recorded and 1.5–2.7 million deaths occur each year [1]. Among them 19,500 death cases due to malaria have been recorded in India [2]. Mortality rate usually depends on the management of malaria which involves antimalarial drug resistance of Plasmodium falciparum and occurrence of systemic complications. Most of the systemic complications from malaria are mainly because of hyperparasitaemia [3]. Blood is the most easily accessible diagnostic tissue. Variations in haematological parameters are influenced by any disease condition which affects the haemopoietic physiology. This is likely to happen with an endemic disease such as malaria that affects the host homeostasis [4]. The target of malaria parasite is RBC so that peripheral blood smear examination is the major diagnostic tool of the disease. Microscopic diagnosis is the “imperfect gold standard’’ for malaria parasite detection and species identification. This technique requires technical expertise and time consuming in repeated smear examinations [5]. However, it is a valuable technique when
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