2.6. Treatment of mice
Before treatment, the mice were weighed and the average
weight in all groups (six mice in every group), was determined
(40 g ± 2.03 SD). They were then treated from day 1 (day of infec-
tion) by a twice-daily gastro-esophageal administration of 333 ll
containing tap water (control group), 330 ll of A. annua infusion
(tea group), 0.011 mg artemisinin corresponding to the tea content
equivalent (AR-equiv. group) and 0.4 mg artemisinin on the first
day and 0.2 mg artemisinin during the following 6 days corre-
sponding to the WHO advised dosage (AR-WHO group), the last
two preparations were dissolved in DMSO.
2.7. Statistical analysis
SPSS software Version 13 for Windows was used to analyse the
data. The significance of a given test (statistic) is reported as a p-
value. For all tests, we have been working on a significant level
a = 0.05. This means that a given test (statistic) is considered statis-
tically significant when p < 0.05.
3. Results
To check the linearity of the TLC method, a calibration line was
constructed from 1 to 4 lg of artemisinin and the following equa-
tion was obtained y = 3413x + 996 (r = 0.998, n = 6). The precision