Microbiological Quality of Herbal Preparations Marketed in South East Nigeria

Objective: The present work is a microbiological quality control study on some herbal preparations marketed in south eastern Nigeria. Materials and methods: Ten solid and ten liquid herbal preparations collected from different herbalists in south eastern Nigeria were assayed for their bacterial and fungal load using the spread plate technique. All the microbial contaminant were characterised at least to genera level. Results: The herbal preparations were heavily contaminated with bacteria and fungi at levels far above the officially stipulated limit for oral pharmaceutical preparations. A total of 45 bacterial (including E. coli, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, Proteus, Streptococcus, and Staphylococcus) and 20 fungal (including Candida, Microsporium and Curvularia) strains were isolated from the preparations. Conclusions: Due to the high degree of microbial contamination of these herbal medicines, and the pathogenic potentials of many of the isolates, it is very necessary that herbalists should be enlightened about Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). Also regular microbiological monitoring of herbal preparations marketed in Nigeria is advocated.