ANALYSIS OF ANTI- MALARIAL DRUG: METAKELFIN
Mariamawit Yilma , John Gitua (Mentor)
Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Science
Drake University
ABSTRACT
Malaria is a mosquito –borne infectious disease of humans caused by the
bite of a female anopheles mosquito. The disease is prevalent in tropical
regions of the world mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Anti-malarial medications such as chloroquine, artemisinin, doxycycline,
Metakelfin and other drugs are used to treat malarial infections. In this
experiment the antimalarial drug, Metakelfin was analyzed to identify the
presence of its main active ingredients. The extraction of such ingredients
done using the appropriate solvents gave a mixture of two components:
Pyrimethamine and sulfamethoxyprazine which were further separated
using the column chromatography. Characterization of such compounds
involved the use of melting point determinations as well as infrared
spectroscopy.
RESULTS
SULFAMETHOXYPRAZINE
PYRIMETHAMINE
Color
Pyrimethamine
White
Sulfamethoxyprazine
Yellowish white
Mass
0.092g
0.063g
Melting
point
168 – 169 0C
226 – 2280C
IR
N-H stretch : 3224.6 N-H : 3640.0 cm-1
cm-1 and 3372.3 cm-1 SP3CH : 2871.0 - 2957 cm-1
N-H bend : 1650 cm-1 SP2CH : 3066.2 cm-1
OBJECTIVE
The goal of this project was to extract and identify the main ingredients
present in Metakelfin drug.
SP3CH : 2879.9 cm-1
C-O : 1150 cm-1
SP2CH : 3028.8 cm-1
Aromatic C=C : 1536.8 1594Cm-1
C-Cl : 678 cm-1
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Malaria is a major health problem in tropical and sub-tropical regions.
CDC estimates 300 -500 cases of malaria each year and results in the
death of more than 1 million people. This disease is rampant for
people living in warm climates where stagnant water creates suitable
environment for the growth and development of mosquito.
Transmission starts from the bite of infected female mosquito.
Plasmodium infection comes in four forms: P. falciparum, P. vivax, P.
ovale and P. malariae. Plasmodium causes destruction to the red
blood cells leading to effects of malaria such as chills, fever jaundice
and anemia amongst others. Other ways in which malaria can be
transmitted includes blood borne, congenital and cryptic methods.
Some of the medications used to treat malaria includes Artemisininbased combination therapies (ACT’s) ,chloroquine , Quinine and
Metakelfin. Metakelfin consists of 0.025g of pyrimethamine and 0.5 g
sulfometapirazina.This drug is effective against P. Falciparum,Vivax ,
Malarie and Ovale.
A 0.650g of Metakelfin tablet was ground using mortar and pestle into fine
powder which was then transferred to a clean, dry Erlemeyer flask and 5mL
of ethyl alcohol was added to it for the extraction of the active components of
the drug. This extraction was repeated three times using 5mL of ethyl
alcohol. The combined ethyl alcohol extracts were filtered and concentrated
using a rotatory evaporator to give a white solid. The qualitative analysis of
this compound using TLC plate, showed the presence of two components.
Column chromatography was used to separate the two components from the
mixture. Analysis of the two components was done using melting point and
Infrared (IR) spectroscopic technique.
The results of this project confirms that Metakelfin which is an
anti-malarial drug is composed of two main active ingredients:
Sulfamethoxyprazine and Pyrimethamine.
FUTURE WORK
Future research will involve the use of NMR technique to further
characterize the above two components of metakelfin drug.
REFERENCES
http://www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/files/ZAM_00-001.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/
http://lekarstwo.ru/en/preparati/metakelfin.html
http://pharmabook.net/en/protivomikrobnye-protivoparaz/sinteti4eskie-antibakterialnye/drugie-sinteti4eskieantibakte/metakelfin.html