THERAPEUTIC EFFECT OF NITAZOXANIDE AND ZINGIBER OFFICINALE IN TREATMENT OF CHRONIC TOXOPLASMOSIS GONDII USING MURINE EXPERIMENTAL MODEL
Mohammed Hussien Saleh1; Amina Ibrahim Abdel –Maaboud1,RababFawzy Mohammed Selem1, Hassan Ali Elfadaly2,AsmaaAbd El Monem El- Kholy1,Nagat Ahmed Soliman1
1Medical Parasitology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University, Egypt Medicine, Benha University, Egypt.
2Zoontic Diseases Department, National Research Center, (NRC), Egypt.
Toxoplasmosis is a cosmopolitan parasitic disease that impacts enormous population sector. In this work we investigated, the antitoxoplamic therapeutic effect of one synthetic drug; nitazoxanide (NTZ) and another agent of plant origin; Zingiber officinale (ginger) as adjuvant to the traditional antotoxoplamic drugs (pyrimethamine & sulphadiazine) on experimental murine toxoplasmosis(Me 49 avirulant strain). Animals were classified into 7 groups; G I: Non -infected, non- treated (normal control), GII: Infected non-treated mice (infected control), GIII: Infected & treated by a combination of pyrimethamine & sulphadiazine, (drug control), Group IV: Infected & treated by Zingiber officienale ,GV: Infected & treated by nitazoxanide, GVI: Infected & treated by combination of Zingiber officienale and pyrimethamine & sulphadiazine, Group VII: Infected & treated by combination of Zingiber officienale & nitazoxanide. Brain cyst counting and assessing histopathological changes using heamatoxylin and eosin (H & E) were utilized to evaluate the efficacy of tested drugs. In the present study, Group VI )treated by Zingiber officienale + pyrimethamine & sulphadiazine) achieved the best results among all studied groups as the reduction rate of the mean brain cyst count was 58.8% The corresponding measurements for other groups were lower than group VI as following: 50.9%, 28%, 38% and 40.6% for groups III, IV, V, and VII respectively. Histopathological studies showed obvious correlation with the results of brain cyst counts. These results denote that nitazoxanide could be an acceptable, standardized, characterized, already FDA approved and commercially available substitute to traditional antitoxiplasmic synthetic drug. Also Zingiber officienale would be a safe and beneficial adjuvant treatment that potentiates the antitoxoplasmic action of the traditional treatment of toxoplasmosis. More studies are needed to address the dose response relationship of both NTZ and Zingiber officienale before using them for treatment of chronic toxoplasmosis.
June 2016