Microbial quality and antimicrobial evaluation of some herbal concoctions in Iwo

Abstract

The use of herbal concoctions (locally made ones) has been on the increase for the cure of various illnesses in Iwo community and around the country. Experiments were conducted on some of the consumed herbal concoctions with the aim of conducting some physico-chemical parameters, estimate the microbial load, isolate some of the major microorganisms and carry out antibiotic test on the isolated bacteria. Some of the fungi isolated were Aspergillus sp, Rhizopus sp etc. Bacterial isolated were identified through biochemical characterization and molecular test. The level of susceptibility of these isolates was evaluated using antibiotic rapid test multidisc containing eight different antibiotics, and resistance genes were amplified from some of the resistant isolates. The pH of the concoctions ranged from 3.99 to 6.45, while the conductivity values ranged from 87.3µs/cm to 1502µs/cm. Bacterial counts of the samples varied from 7.0 × 104 cfu/mL to 3.8 × 105 cfu/mL. Ninety (90) isolates belonging to fifteen (15) genera were isolated and identified. Providencia sp with 17 isolates (19%) recorded the highest occurrence, followed by Pantoea sp with 13 isolates (14.4%), Citrobacter sp with 10 isolates (11.1%), Serratia sp, Proteus sp and Klebsiella sp with 7 isolates each (7.8%) each, Kluyvera sp and Enterobacter sp with 5 isolates each (5.6%) each, Brenneria sp and Escherichia coli with 4 isolates each (4.4%) each, Edwardsiella sp with 3 isolates (3.3%), Salmonella sp, Cedecea sp, Pseudomonas sp and Yersinia sp with 2 isolates each (2.2%) each. All the isolates showed resistance to different antibiotics used, especially the cephalosporins. The genes found to be responsible the cephalosporin resistance of some in the isolates were the TEM-972 and CTX-M-200. The presence of the multi-antibiotic resistant microorganisms in the herbal concoctions poses a serious public health threat.