ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF PATHOGENIC BACTERIA FROM LIQUID HERBAL DRUGS SOLD IN UMUAHIA

Table

Title

Page

1

Identification of Drugs Based on Their Life Cycle, Colour, Odour Composition and Supposed Cure.

22

2

Bacterial Isolates from Different Drugs

25

3

Number and Percentage of Bacterial Isolates from the Drugs Analyzed

26

4

Gram and Biochemical Characterization of the Isolates

27

5

Total Viable Count

28

6

Antibiotic Susceptibility Profile of the Bacterial Isolates from Liquid Herbal Drugs in Umuahia

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Since ancient times humanity has depended on the diversity of plant resources for food , clothing,  shelther and traditional medicine to cure myriads of ailment. Herbal medicine is the oldest form of health care known to humanity and has been used in all cultures through out history. Primitive people learned by trials and mistake to distinguish useful plants with beneficial effects from those that were toxic .Traditional medicine evolved over centuries depending on local flora, culture and religon (Cassileth, 1998). Herbs are valued for its medicinal aromatic or savoury qualities. Most herbal products contain plants parts or plant materials in the crude or proccessed state as active ingedients and certain excipient such as solvents, diluents and preservatives.

A herb might be considered a diluent drug ,to achieve the desired benefit an individual must take an adequate amount over a certain lenght of time. Herbal medicines are very different from well defined synthetic drug. For example the availability and quality of the raw materials are frequently problematic, the active principles are frequently unknown and standardization, stability and qualitycontrol are feasible but not easy. Due to poverty and limited access to modern medicine about four billion people, 80% of the worlds poppulation, living in developing countries use herbal medicines as their source of primary health care (Bodeker, et  al, 2005).

• In the west, people are attracted to herbal therapies for many reasons, the most important being that like our ancestors we believe they will help us live healthier lives .Herbal medicines are often viewed as a balanced and moderate approach of healing. The recent resurgence of interest in plant remedies has been spurred on by several factors (Calixto, 2000).

• The preference of consumers for natural therapies, a greater interest in alternative medicines and a commonly held erroneous belief that herbal products are superior to manufactured products.

• A dissatisfaction with the result from synthetic drugs and the belief that herbal medicines might be effective in the treatment of certain diseases where conventional therapies and medicines have proven inadequate.

• High cost and side effects of most modern drugs.

• Improvement in the quality, efficacy and safety of herbal drugs with the development of science and technology.

• Patients belief that their physicians have not properly identified the problem hence they feel that herbal remedies areanother options.

• A movement toward self medication.

• The effectiveness of plant remedies.

In most countries herbal products are launched into the market without proper scientific evaluation and without any mandatory safety and toxicological studies. There is no effective machinery to regulate manufacturing practices and quality standards. Consumers buy herbal products without prescription and one might not recognize the potential hazard in an inferior product. A well defined and constant composition of the drugs is therefore one of the most important prerequistes for the production of a quality drug. Given the nature of the products of plant origin which by definition are never constant and are dependent on and influenced by many factors. Quality control plays a significant role for the industry to thrieve and be successful (Bauer 1996). 

Liquid herbal medicinal product are crude preparations of various kinds of medicinal plants involving a dried plant or any of its parts, such as leaf, stem, root, flower or seed. Liquid herbal medicinal products are becoming increasingly popular (Fisher and Ward, 1994; Brevoort, 1998). In most African countries including Nigeria, liquid herbal medicine is recognised as an important component of health care system, especially among rural dwellers that constitute about 70% of the population (Esimone et al., 2002). This is because herbal medicines are accessible and cheap (Sofowora, 1993).

The quality criteria for liquid herbal drugs are based on a clear scientific definition of the raw materials. It is difficult to establish comprehensive quality criteria for liquid herbal drugs due to ‘professional secrecy’ of herbalists. To improve the purity and safety of the products, observation of basic hygiene during preparation, standardization of some physical characteristic such as moisture content, pH and microbial contamination levels are desirable. Previous studies have confirmed the presence of potential contaminant in herbal preparations (De-Smet, 1999). The contaminates that present serious health hazards are pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella spp and other gram positive and gram negative strains of bacteria (Arias, et al., 1999, Erich, et al., 2001, Wolfgang, et al., 2002).

These medicinal plant materials normally carry a large number of microbes originating from soil. The organisms of various kinds are normally adhered to leaves, stems, flowers, roots and seeds, additional contaminants may also be introduced during harvesting, handling and production of various herbal remedies since no conscious efforts are made to decontaminate the herbs, other than washing them (Anyanwu, et al., 2010).

Since they are natural products, all parts of the plants can be degraded by bacteria and fungi especially molds. Raw materials are most often degraded by microorganisms before harvesting, during handling and after prolonged storage (Mathe, 1995, Kenneth, 1989). The presence of sufficient numbers of pathogenic microbes can be harmful to consumers.

1.2 Aim and Objectives

The aim of this study is to

Evaluate the microbial safety quality of liquid herbal drugs used for therapeutic purposes in Umuahia.

The objectives are

1. To isolate and identify pathogenic organisms found in liquid herbal drugs..

2. To estimate bacteria load in liquid herbal drugs.

3. To determine the antibiotic sensitivity pattern of bacteria isolates from liquid herbs in the study.

29