Abstract Introduction: The impact of malaria scourge has been characterized by daunting challenges including antimalarial drug resistance. This necessitates the search for newer antimalarial drugs using approaches including drug repurposing. This study assessed whether Tinidazole (T) can be repurposed as an antimalaria in combination with artemether/lumefantrine (A/L) in Plasmodium berghei infected mice. Materials and Methods: Plasmodium berghei infected mice were grouped and orally treated with A/L (2.3/13.7mg/kg), T (28.6 mg/kg), and A/L/T daily in curative, suppressive and prophylactic studies. The negative control (NC) and positive control (MC) were orally treated with 0.9% normal saline (0.2mL) and chloroquine (CQ) (10mg/kg) daily for 4 days, respectively. After drug administration, blood samples were collected and evaluated for parasitemia level, lipid and hematological parameters. Results: Significant decreases in parasitemia levels in the curative, suppressive and prophylactic groups were observed in mice treated with T (28.6 mg/kg) (p<0.05), A/L (2.3/13.7 mg/kg) (p<0.01) and A/L/T (p<0.001) when compared to negative control. Mean survival times were significantly increased by T (28.6 mg/kg) (p<0.05), A/L (2.3/13.7mg/kg) (p<0.01) and A/L/T (p<0.001) when compared to negative control. Red blood cells, hemoglobin, packed cell volume, high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were significantly (p<0.001) increased whereas white blood cells, total cholesterol, triglyceride and low density lipoprotein cholesterol levelsĀ were significantly decreased by T (28.6 mg/kg) (p<0.05), A/L (2.3/13.7mg/kg) (p<0.01) and A/L/T (p<0.001) when compared to negative control. The antiplasmodial effect of A/L/T differ significantly (p<0.05) when compared to positive control. Conclusion: Artemether/lumefantrine/tinidazole may be effective against malaria.
Keywords Artemeter; lumefantrine; tinidazole; antiplasmodial; P. berghei; mice.