Malaria infection during pregnancy is a risk factor for foetus survival and is associated with abortion, premature delivery and low birth weight of infants in malaria endemic regions. In these regions, prophylactic measures and treatment mainly rely on chloroquine and sulphadoxine pyrimethamine, but their efficacy in reducing the placental pathology has not been studied. Therefore, the present study was designed to assess the effectiveness of chloroquine and sulphadoxine pyrimethamine treatment in reducing the placental pathology of Plasmodium berghei infected BALB/c mice. It was observed that pregnant-infected mice, treated either with chloroquine or sulphadoxine pyrimethamine had significantly lower percent parasitaemia, 100% survival and delivered normally compared with untreated pregnant-infected mice. Interestingly, antimalarial treatment significantly reduced malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, measure of lipid peroxidation and number of apoptotic cells in the placentae of pregnant-infected treated mice. Histologically also no morphological and cellular alterations were observed in the placentae of pregnant-infected treated mice. Taken together, the study shows the effectiveness of chloroquine and sulphadoxine pyrimethamine treatment, when administered in second trimester in abrogating malaria induced oxidative stress, apoptosis and histopathological alterations in the placenta, leading to normal foetal development.
Keywords: Catalase; Chloroquine; Malaria; Malondialdehyde; Placenta; Pregnancy; Sulphadoxine pyrimethamine; Superoxide dismutase.
© 2013.