Standardisation of Artemisia annua using Reversed Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC).

Artemisia annua L is a traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of many disorders including drug resistant malaria. The active constituent against malaria, artemisinin, has been isolated and characterized by Chinese scientists. Artemisia annua is now being grown in malaria endemic countries like Nigeria. The aim of the present study was to quantify artemisinin content of Nigerian Grown Artemisia annua using a fast and reliable Reversed Phase-High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC) analytical technique since artemisinin content is affected by geographical and seasonal variations. HPLC conditions used for determination of the artemisinin content were established as follows; phenomenex luna column (5 μm; 250 mm × 4.6 mm) was employed with the mobile phase of acetic acid (% 0.1 v/v): acetonitrile: H2O (70:30) mixture at the flow rate of 1 ml/min. The good linearity of artemisinin was observed with y = 11714 × (r2 = 0.9989). Artemisinin was detected in our sample and was calculated to be 1.0975%.