Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Evaluation of Pharmaceutical and Microbial Qualities of Some Herbal Medicinal Products in South Western Nigeria

Adenike . Okunlola, Babatunde A Adewoyin, Oluwatoyin A Odeku

Department of Pharmaceutics & Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.;

For correspondence:- Oluwatoyin Odeku Email: pejuodeku@yahoo.com Tel:+2348033235828

Published: 23 March 2007

Citation: Okunlola A., Adewoyin BA, Odeku OA. Evaluation of Pharmaceutical and Microbial Qualities of Some Herbal Medicinal Products in South Western Nigeria. Trop J Pharm Res 2007; 6(1):661-670 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v6i1.5

© 2007 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of the present study was to investigate the pharmaceutical and microbial qualities of 21 different (of various dosage forms) Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPs) sourced from some traditional medicine sales outlets and retail pharmacy outlets in south western Nigeria.
Method: The pharmaceutical qualities evaluated include tablet crushing strength, friability, disintegration time; density of the solutions and suspensions; particle size and angle of repose of the powders. Phytochemical tests were carried out to assess the class of compounds present in the formulations and the microbial quality of the products was also evaluated.
Results: The results show that twelve (57.1%) of the products had their manufacturing and expiry dates stated, nine (42.9%) products have been registered by NAFDAC and ten (47.6%) did not have their content stated but had their therapeutic claims indicated on the container. The tablet formulation (Product A) showed acceptable crushing strength and friability but failed the test for disintegration time. The angle of repose of the powder dosage forms were considerably high showing that the powders were highly cohesive and not free flowing. The microbial load of the products varied considerably. Ten (47.6%) of the samples were contaminated by E. coli, seven (33%) were contaminated by Salmonella, fifteen (71.4%) were contaminated by Staphylococcus aureus and twelve (57.1%) were contaminated by fungi.
Conclusion: There is need for constant monitoring and control of the standards of herbal medicines available in the Nigerian market.

Keywords: Herbal medicinal products, microbial quality, pharmaceutical quality.