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Effects of Bee Bread Extract from Meliponula Ferriguinea on Chemical Induced and Bacterial Infected Corneal Ulcers of Rabbit Eyes

Andrew Wekesa, Alfred Ragot, Walter Yego

Aim: Corneal ulcerations are immediate risks to avoidable blindness. In many developing countries, their treatment present huge challenges, often due to increased resistance to anti-bacterial drugs, costs and accessibility issues. Bee bread is a valuable apitherapeutic product greatly appreciated by the natural medicine because of its potential medical and nutritional applications. In this study, we investigated the pharmacological effect of extract from M. ferriguinea on chemical-induced and bacterial-infected corneal ulceration of rabbit’s eyes.
Method: A randomized-controlled experiment, was conducted on 15 New Zealand rabbits weighing 1.4 ± 0.42 kgrandomly assigned to 3 groups; A (Experimental group), B (Positive Control group) and C (Negative control group) of five animals each. All rabbits were adapted for 2 weeks. The right eye corneas were then injured using a drop of 1 Molar sodium hydroxide (NaOH). After 12 hours, animals in all groups in their injured corneas were infected with 1 drop of a laboratory prepared solution of P Aeruginosa. Treatment with extracts of M. ferriguinea-groups A group B treated with ciprofloxacin then group C treated with atropine alone commenced after 24 hours and continued every 4 hours for 7 days.
Results: Although the mean healing effect of extracts of M. ferriguinea was not significantly (p>0.05) better after the 168th hour of treatment compared to its effect after the 24th hour, the effect size however, was clinical significant (57%). Furthermore, we found no significant difference (p>0.05) between the mean healing effects of the standard treatment protocol and the extracts of M. ferriguinea, but the standard treatment protocol showed a better clinical effect (33%) over the experimental extract. Also, the healing effects of atropine alone showed a better clinical effect (22%) than that of the experimental extract, but again, these were not statistically significant (p>0.05).
Conclusion: Extracts of M. ferriguinea shows anti-inflammatory and anti-infective effects on chemical-induced and bacterial-infected corneal ulcers in rabbit ’s eyes. We found these effects to be comparable to that of standard treatment protocol for bacterial corneal ulcers. We thus conclude that in resource-constrained areas where M. ferriguinea is richly available, their extracts may provide alternative and/or complementary treatment option for chemical-induced and bacterial-infected corneal ulcers.