Phytochemical Screening of Crude Extracts of Bridelia micrantha

In Kenya, 22 million people are at risk of malaria, 70% of them are in rural areas, and most of these people use traditional plant-based medicines to treat malaria. The use of natural product-derived drugs and drugs from other sources in combating malaria has however been faced with several challenges, including the emergence of drug resistance parasites, thereby making many of the first line drugs such as chloroquine (CQ) not efficient. The aim of this study was to determine the phytochemical properties of Bridelia micrantha used to treat malaria among the Digo community in Kenya. The crude extracts were obtained using hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol. A Shimadzu 8400 FT-IR was used to determine the functional groups present in the crude extracts. From the results obtained, various functional groups characteristic of phenolics, tannins, saponins, alkaloids, flavonoids, and glycosides were found to be present. A quantitative assay was performed using Shimadzu 6200 UV-VIS spectrophotometer. The total phenolics and flavonoids were found to be highest in barks with a concentration of 0.84±0.14 mg/g and of 0.86±0.03 mg/g respectively while Saponin content was found to be highest in leaves with a concentration of 12.66±0.23 mg/g. Alkaloid content, on the other hand, was found to be highest in roots with a concentration of 313.44±0.05 mg/g.