Helminthic diseases are endemic across the globe causing gastro-intestinal infection in humans. Public health is greatly threatened in tropical and temperate regions, due to its moist and warm climate favoring survivability of parasitic eggs. Most of the chronic infections in human are due to Soil transmitted helminthes.1, 2 The transmission occurs though fomites or vectors in water lodging areas. Mostly unhygienic practices lead to transmission through various food items. 3 Several conditions like malnutrition, anemia, pneumonia and eosinophilia are being reported in the developing countries due to the prevailing infections, where India has not left behind so far. 4 By these, it causes huge economical losses, treatment costs and threat to public health, which recalls for prevention and control of the prevailing infections. Chemotherapy and chemoprophylaxis play a crucial role in this context. Several anthelmintic drugs are available that can either expel worms through faeces or kill the infecting helminths inside the body. 5 Due to rampant use of specific drugs, anthelmintic resistances have emerged out causing treatment failure and the parasitic control programs were limited to non-chemotherapeutic interventions like host selection, biological control and worm vaccines. 6 These led to introduction of ethnomedicine practices combating the drug resistance and treatment failure.

The traditional use plant P. guajava has been recognized since ancient era and its fruit is considered as poor man’s apple. Presently many researchers have validated the anti-diarrhoeal, antiseptic, antibacterial and antioxidant properties of the plant extract. 7 The tree grows in tropical regions of the world i.e. Thailand, Brazil, West Indies, South America, India and Bangladesh. 8, 9 According to IH Burkill, boiled water extract of P. guajava leaves and bark are used in medicinal preparations, which were utilized as remedies for dysentery, diarrhea and upper respiratory tract infections in Florida, the West Indies and parts of South America. 9 In Malaysia, decoction of P. guajava leaf is used for stomachache and gastroenteritis. 10, 11, 12 Since the antidiarrheal property of P. guajava leave extract has been documented earlier, the present study was conducted to establish the anthelmintic property of it against earthworm “Pheretima posthuma”.

The present study was conducted during November To January where fresh leaves were collected in Raigarh district and earthworm in Raigarh, The extraction of leaves, Phytochemical study and anthelmintic activity and data analysis was done at Raigarh College of Pharmacy, Raigarh,C.G..

The preliminary phytochemical investigation of the chloroform, aqueous and methanol extract of P. guajava leaves showed the presence of different phytoconstituents, and it has been described in Table 1.

The ash and extractive values of P. guajava leaves were recorded during the study. The total ash value (9.5%) indicates that the leave is comparatively rich in mineral elements. Acid insoluble and water-soluble ash values were 0.7% and 5.5% respectively (Table 2). The extractive values for chloroform, water and methanol were 0.25%, 7.0% and 9.1% respectively.

The paralytic and wormicidal effect of different extracts and piperazine citrate against the earthworm were shown in the Table 3. The trend of both the effects was found to be higher in methanolic extract followed by water extract and less in chloroform extract. The methanol extract exhibited an increased paralytic as well as wormicide effect over Piperazine citrate at the given experimental concentrations.

The anthelmintic property of methanol extract of P. guavaja leaves was found to be more effective than other extracts and Piperazine. The phytochemical screening of methanolic extracts revealed the presence of flavonoids, glycosides, alkaloids, steroids and tannins, while amino acids, proteins & saponins were absent. Tannins are one of the main constituents that produce anthelmintic activity. 16, 17 The ash values and extractive values are useful for checking of impurities present in a particular extract. Physico-chemical parameters of P. guavaja were investigated and were found to be in the permissible limit which indicated that the prepared plant extracts were of better quality. During comparative in vitro study of anthelmintic activity of P. guajava leaves extract against Indian adult earthworm P. posthuman, the methanolic extract showed a significantly (p≤0.05) highest anthelmintic activity than that of aqueous extract, chloroform extract and Piperazine citrate. This may be due to the increased level of extraction of tannins in methanol followed by water and less in chloroform extracts. The methanolic extracts have been found to possess highest rate of paralytic (1.820±0.242 min) and death (5.573±0.315 min) of earthworm against the standard drug Piperazine citrate and other extracts. Chemically, tannins are polyphenolic compounds and some synthetic phenolic anthelmintic drugs (eg. Niclosamide & Oxyozanide) 18 interfere with energy generation in helminthes by uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation, it is possible that tannins contained in the extracts of P. guajava produced similar effects. Another possible anthelmintic effect of tannins is that they can bind to free proteins in the gastrointestinal tract of host animal or glycoprotein of the parasite and cause death. The results in this study can be corroborated to the different level of tannins present in different extracts, resulting into different degree of anthelmintic property. Our findings appraise the use ethnomedical practices, which can be an effort to combat the anthelmintic drug resistances.

The wormicidal activity of leaves extract of P. guajava suggests that it is effective against parasitic infections of humans. Further, in future it is necessary to identify and isolate the possible active phytoconstituents responsible for the anthelmintic activity and study its pharmacological actions.

All authors declare that there exists no conflict of interest.