Microbial burden of some herbal antimalarials marketed at Elele, Rivers State

Herbal antimalarials still remain an alternative to our traditional communities who can not afford orthodox antimalarials. This study was aimed at investigating the microbial quality of six herbal antimalarials using standard microbiological methods. Of the six preparations analyzed, "schnapps&...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAfrican journal of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicines Vol. 7; no. 2; pp. 149 - 152
Main Authors Tatfeng, Y M, Olama, E H, Ojo, T O
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nigeria African Networks on Ethnomedicines 30.12.2009
Subjects
Antimalarials - adverse effects
Antimalarials - analysis
Bacteria - isolation & purification
Colony Count, Microbial
Drug Contamination
Ethanol
Fungi - isolation & purification
Humans
Malaria - drug therapy
Marketing
Medicine, African Traditional
Nigeria
Phytotherapy
Plant Extracts - analysis
Plant Preparations - analysis
Plants, Medicinal - microbiology
Water
Nigeria
antimalarials
Elele
herbal
microbial
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Summary:Herbal antimalarials still remain an alternative to our traditional communities who can not afford orthodox antimalarials. This study was aimed at investigating the microbial quality of six herbal antimalarials using standard microbiological methods. Of the six preparations analyzed, "schnapps", palm wine and water were the media of preparation; the water base preparations recorded higher microbial load. The mean microbial load was 159.5 × 10(5) cfu/ml and 217.4 × 10(2)cfu/ml in water and alcohol base preparations respectively. The microbial profile of the preparations showed that the schnapps base preparations were predominantly contaminated with Bacillus sp (Aerobic spore bearers) and Mucor spp. The palm wine preparation harboured Bacillus sp, yeasts and Mucor spp while the water base preparations had several isolates such as Staphylococcus epidermidis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli 0157H7, Proteus mirabilis, Enterococcus feacalis, Serratia marcensces, Staph. aureus, Bacillus spp and Mucor spp. Conclusively, this study underlines the public health importance of these preparations given the high burden of such human pathogen as Ecoli O157H7, Ps aeruginosa, Stahp aureus, etc. in the preparations.
ISSN:0189-6016
2505-0044
0189-6016