AN ASSESSMENT OF BACTERIAL CONTAMINATION OF LOCALLY PREPARED
HERBAL/TRADITIONAL ORAL LIQUID MEDICINES SOLD IN OWINO MARKET
Gonsha Rehema
Mulago Hospital
Gonsharehema@yahoo.co.uk, 0775152851
BACKGROUND
It’s estimated that 80% of people worldwide rely on herbal medicines for some part of their
primary health care. Despite the benefits, herbal products may be contaminated with
contaminants such as microbial agents and heavy metals. It’s therefore important that microbial
contamination of herbal preparations, more so oral liquid preparations be assessed. However,
assessment of microbial contamination of herbal oral preparations in Uganda is not yet done by
NDA.
OBJECTIVESTo assess the bacterial contamination of locally prepared herbal/traditional oral
liquid medicines sold in Owino market, Kampala Uganda.
METHODOLOGYHerbal oral liquid preparations locally prepared and sold in Owino market,
Kampala were included. Systematically, one bottle of each of five different oral liquid herbal
products was purchased. The five products were chosen, based on first got first sampled. From
each bottle three aliquot samples were assessed for bacterial contamination by Microscopy,
culture techniques, coagulase test, catalyse reactions, oxidase reactions and biochemical
methods. The assessments were identification and quantification of bacterial contaminants. The
bacteria species assessed were; Salmonella Typhi, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Escherichia Coli,
Vibrio Cholerae and Staphylococcus aureaus. The observation or measurements were analyzed
using Monica Cheesbrough 1998 and the British Pharmacopeia 2007.
RESULTSThe wet preparation microscopic examination, gram stain, cultures, oxidase and
catalase reactions showed that all the preparations had aerobic bacterial contaminations. In
addition to bacterial contamination, these products except Mukisa Cough mixture and Suubi
Herbal Cough Mixture had numerous fungi (Candida krusei and Candida glabralata). The
organisms isolated were Candida krusei and Candida glabralata, Streptococcus pyogenes,
Staphylococcus Epidermidis,
Saphylococci
Saprophyticus, Staphylococcus aureus ,
Enterobacter, Escherichia coli, Citrobacter freundii and Serratia marcescens.
CONCLUSION One can conclude that these products can adversely affect health status of
consumers and are also unstable, since all the five products studied had microbial load above the
limits specified in the BP 2007.