Effectiveness of Origanum syriacum on Schistosoma mansoni Infected Mice: Parasitological, Histopathological and Scanning Electron Microscopical Studies

Schistosomiasis remains one of the most prevalent parasitic infections worldwide. Millions of people suffer severe illness related to schistosomiasis. The present studies aimed to evaluate the anti-parasitic effects of the crude, aqueous, and hexane fractions of Origanum syriacum against Schistosoma mansoni infected mice, the anti-schistosomal activity of the crude extracts of O. syriacum, their aqueous and hexane fractions were assessed by some parasitological and histopathological studies as worm load, liver egg load, intestine egg load, oogram pattern and also the SEM studies of the ultrastructure of schistosome tegument. Sixty male albino mice were used in the studies; twenty mice were observed for the acute toxicity of the Origanum syriacum extract and its fractions, for the evaluation of the anti-parasitic effects, twenty mice were infected with S. mansoni cercariae via subcutaneous route by a rate of by 80±10 cercariae per mouse and randomly divided into 4 groups (5 mice in each cage). The other uninfected 20 mice were randomly divided into 4 groups, after 6 weeks post-infection all experiment trials were conducted for 14 consecutive days. The results revealed that the groups treated with crude extracts of Origanum syriacum, and their aqueous fractions might be considered a promising anti-inflammatory and anti-schistosomal agent as they have schistosomicidal, ovicidal, histopathological effects and they reduced the total worm burden as compared with the untreated infected group.