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Aridan - Success in fighting Bilharzia the natural way
Research by Professor Adewunmi, Awolowo
University, Nigeria
For thousands of years, spices have been a source of wealth. They have improved food taste and added health benefits to our diets. In West
Africa, the plant Tetrapleura tetraptera (locally known as Aridan) is used as a spice, a medicine and as a dietary supplement rich in vitamins. Professor
Adewunmi of the Drug Research and Production Unit in the Faculty of Pharmacy at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria has pioneered research in the use of this plant.
Early research conducted by Prof. Adewunmi and his colleagues showed that
methanolic (alcohol based) extracts of the plant were able to kill snails. These extracts
could thus be called molluscicides. Bilharzia, the disease caused by Schistosomes
is prevalent throughout the region where Tetrapleura tetraptera is
grown. Part of the lifecycle of this parasite includes snails found in rivers and ponds.
Any effective Bilharzia protection programme always entails measures to kill these snails.
Many of the countries in this region do however lack the financial resources to repeatedly dose their rivers with
molluscicides. Could Tetrapleura tetraptera then provide a workable solution?
Prof. Adewunmi and his team procceeded to fine-tune their approach to meet
the demands of those who would employ the measures. Methanol is expensive and extracting plant matter with methanol requires certain skills. The extracts would also have to be transported to the pools and administered
regularly. Something better was needed- water!
Water is an abundant resource in the region and water extracts of Tetrapleura
tetraptera were found to be highly effective in killing snails, with treated ponds having no recurrence of snails for up to 28 days! If the active ingredients can be extracted from the plant using water, it then appeared that it could be possible to correlate low snail populations in rivers to areas where large populations of
Tetrapleura tetraptera grew on the banks. A correlation was indeed found with far lower populations of snails in areas with many of these interesting plants.
This research has demonstrated how careful planting of Tetrapleura tetraptera
in areas of high Billharzia transmission can reduce the rates of infection, offering countries with limited resource a more environmentally and financially friendly way of protecting their populations from this dreaded disease.
If such a plant were to be planted in large quantities, it would be useful if it had other applications as well. In the case of
Tetrapleura tetraptera, it was found that it had anti-ulcer and anti-convulscant properties, confirming
its ethnomedicinal use to treat these symptoms. The active
ingredients were found to be rapidly passed through the mammalian body, with little retention in tissues. They were also found to exhibit very few toxic effects, and were mutagenic only in the presence of other more dangerous chemicals which are not frequently found.
The low rate of uptake by mammalian test subjects also suggested that it would be safe to encourage the large scale treatment of rivers with
Tetrapleura tetraptera extracts as the chances of the active ingredients damaging mammals were quite low.
Tetrapleura tetraptera - an exciting new tool in the fight against
billharzia. We can only hope that other scientists will, like Prof. Adewunmi, make use of the vast botanical wealth of our continent to improve our standards of living and personal safety.
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Professor C.O. Adewunmi is based in the Drug Research and Production Unit
Faculty of Pharmacy
Obafemi Awolowo University
Ile-Ife, Nigeria
E-mail: Prof Adewunmi
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