Denis Conteh, Tamba Buffa, Sitta Kamara, Eugene BS Conteh and Abdulai Turay

Background: Antimicrobial resistance motivates exploration of plant-based agents. Didelotia afzelia is used in Sierra Leonean ethnomedicine and as a fish poison, suggesting potent bioactives (Ken Fern, 2021; Friday, 2018; Odugbemi, 2008; World Health Organization, 2020) ^{[4, 5, 8, 12]}.

Objective: To profile phytochemicals from leaves, stem, bark, and roots of Didelotia afzelia using three solvents and to screen antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Shigella dysenteriae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Materials and Methods: Air‑dried powders were macerated in methanol, water, or petroleum ether. Qualitative phytochemical tests followed Sofowora/Trease & Evans/Harborne (Sambo et al., 2015) ^[9]. Agar‑well diffusion on Mueller-Hinton agar used 0.5 McFarland suspensions; zones were read after 24 h at 37 °C.

Results: Methanol and aqueous extracts contained abundant alkaloids, glycosides, terpenoids, tannins, and saponins; steroids were undetected. Petroleum ether extracts showed few constituents. Bark extracts produced the largest inhibition zones especially against Staphylococcus aureus with methanol generally exceeding aqueous activity. TLC indicated more non‑polar constituents in leaves; bark produced the fastest piscicidal effect.

Conclusion: Didelotia afzelia harbors diverse phytochemicals and exhibits in‑vitro antibacterial effects (notably bark/methanol), supporting traditional use and motivating isolation, quantitation, MIC/MBC testing, and safety evaluation (Truong et al., 2019; Dirar et al., 2019; Kneifel et al., 2002) ^{[10, 3, 7]}.

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