Microbial quality and antimicrobial evaluation of some herbal concoctions in a Rural Town in Nigeria

Abstract

The use of local herbal concoctions has been on the increase for the cure of various illnesses in Iwo community and Nigeria generally. Experiment aimed at isolating major microorganisms and carrying out antibiotic resistant test on the bacterial isolates was carried out. Bacteria isolated were identified through biochemical tests and molecular characterization. Susceptibility levels of these isolates was evaluated using antibiotic rapid test multidisc containing eight different antibiotics and resistance genes were amplified from some of the isolates. Five fungal species were isolated from the samples and these included Aspergillus niger and Mucor sp which occurred the most (33.3%), while Rhizopus stolonifera and Aspergillus nidulans had the lowest occurrence (6.7%). Twenty- four bacterial species belonging to fifteen (15) genera were identified. These includes Providencia sp 17(19%) recorded the highest occurrence, followed by Pantoea sp 13(14.4%) and Citrobacter sp 10(11.1%) while Salmonella sp, Cedecea sp, Pseudomonas sp and Yersinia sp had the lowest occurrence (2.2%) each. All the isolates showed resistance to three or more antibiotics used, especially the cephalosporins. The genes found to be responsible for the cephalosporin resistance in some of the isolates were TEM-972 and CTX-M-200. Presence of the multi-antibiotic resistant microorganisms in herbal concoctions poses a serious public health threat.