THE POTENTIAL CONVENTION OF GARLIC AND BLACK SEED DIFFERENT EXTRACTS AS AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT OF CRYPTOSPORIDIUM SPP. : AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of garlic (Allium sativum) and black seed (Nigella sativa) extractsproducts as treatment of Cryptosporidium infection in experimental mice in comparison toNitazoxanide (NTZ). Forty-eight male Swiss Albino mice divided into 8 experimental conditions;G1-8, the first seven groups received 1.5×105 Cryptosporidium spp. oocysts on 1st infectionday. The first group included mice treated with garlic juice; in G2, G4 & G5, mice were treatedwith black seed oil, alcoholic extract of black seed and alcoholic extract of black ariel parts respectively.In G3 mice were treated with garlic & black seed oil mixture, while G6 mice treatedwere with Nitaxanoide. Besides G7 were infected untreated (+ ve control); and G8 were neitherinfectednor treated (– ve control); From 2nd day post-infection, pooled fecal samples of eachgroup were collected daily to assess each extract efficacy as compared with NTZ and both +veand –ve controls by calculating oocyst excretion pattern. The comparison between number ofoocysts shedding rates among different treatment groups showed that the efficacy of NTZ wasthe highest (76.1%) followed by N. sativa oil (75.8%) followed by mixture of garlic and blackseed oil (75.4%), alcoholic black seed extract (75.1%); alcoholic arial extract (74.7%) and thelowest was garlic juice (73.1%). Although both A. sativum and all N. sativa extract productsshowed a great degree of efficacy in reducing Cryptosporidium spp. oocysts excretions in theexperimental animals compared to positive control, but without significance differences betweenthem and preparation of both garlic, black seed and mixture with NTZ.