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Microbial
quality of some herbal solid dosage forms
R. Enayatifard, H. Asgarirad* and B.
Kazemi-sani
Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mazandaran
University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
dr_asgarirad@yahoo.de.
Tel: +98-151-3243082. Fax: +98-151-3243084.
Accepted 6 January, 2009 |
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Herbal remedies are widely used for the treatment and
prevention of various diseases and often contain highly
active pharmacological compounds. These products have the
potential of contamination with different microorganisms.
This is due to raw materials contamination and unhygienic
production conditions. In this study, microbiological
quality of some herbal solid dosage forms from public
markets, in the city of Sari, Iran was examined. 20 herbal
products as tablet, powder and capsule were prepared. The
products were evaluated for microbial contamination by USP
(United States Pharmacopoeia) microbial limit test for
enumeration and identification. Total aerobic count showed
that all products had more than 1100 microorganism per gram.
Isolation and identification of microbial contamination
showed that all the samples were contaminated with
Salmonella sp. and there was no evidence for
contamination of the samples by Staphylococcus aureus,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and
Candida albicans. In conclusion, all the samples of
herbal drugs evaluated did not generally meet the standards
for microbial limits as specified in official monographs.
Such products can adversely affect health status of
consumers as well as the stability of the products.
Key words:
Microbial quality, herbal, contamination, solid dosage form |
