Preliminary study on the antibacterial activity of garlic (Allium sativum) on Salmonella, Shigella, and Escherichia coli

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to see if garlic would inhibit the growth of Salmonella, Shigella and Escherichia coli. This helps to understand the effectiveness of home remedies such as natural herbs including garlic for medicinal purposes. This study focuses on the significant antibacterial activity of garlic (Allium sativum) extract against gram negative bacteria like Salmonella, Shigella and E. coli. The plant parts are known to have antimicrobial activity on bacteria which are known to be pathogenic to animals in general and to humans in particular. The plant extracts were inoculated on prepared media of microbial culture containing Salmonella, Shigella and E. coli species. The result obtained indicates garlic has a strong effect on Salmonella by reducing the number of colonies that survive due to exposure to the antimicrobial agent which is approximately similar to that of Salmonella but E. coli species showed some percent of resistance in comparison to Salmonella and Shigella.