Anti-Microbial and Anti-Fungal Activities of Methanol Extract of Argemone mexicana and its Potential Anti-Hepatitis Promises

Abstract

Hepatitis has been a major plague of mankind. The history of the discovery of causative viruses is one of the most fascinating scientific adventures of this half-century. Individualization of several types of hepatitis only emerged after world war two. Their identification has been associated with milestones which revolutionized medicine and public health. The discovery of HBV brought the first ever vaccine not prepared by tissue culture but initially directly from plasma and soon the first vaccine produced by genetic engineering. Increasing evidence suggest that Viral Hepatitis is a critical disease that kills about 15% to 25% people prematurely due to its infection. Treatment with available interferons only suppresses viral reproduction in about 40% to 90% of patients with chronic hepatitis. Most people do not have a permanent response and relapse is common; the medications do not cure the infection. Determination of zone of inhibition by means of agar well method in this study, showed that Argemone mexicana extract exhibited antimicrobial effects against E. coli, B. subtilis, S. aureus, at 25, 50, and 100 mg/ml respectively, for the antifungal activity, using A. niger, A. fumigatus and M. species the extracts at the same concentrations inhibited the growth of the fungi dose-dependently. The phytochemical screening of this plant revealed the presence of Tannins, saponins, flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids glycosides etc. which are reported to be responsible for numerous medicinal uses of plants. A. mexicana whose many pharmacological properties described by the traditional medical practitioners such as anti-hepatotoxic activity Anti-malarial, Antibacterial, Hepatoprotective, AntiHIV, anti-hepatitis and in the treatment of jaundice have been confirmed by several authors hence the need for the study. It is therefore eminent for us as scientist responsible for the discovery of noble drugs to characterize this plant should we find safer potent drugs for this scourge hepatitis.