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Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi
BACKGROUND: There has been an increase in use of herbal medicine worldwide. It is either used as a stand-alone or complementary therapy to conventional medicine due to past good experience, poverty and family traditions. In Malawi, there are no regulations governing the supply, acquisition, marketin...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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The Medical Association Of Malawi
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7812145/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33488987 http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mmj.v32i3.8 |
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author | Kalumbi, Martin Henderson Likongwe, Martin Charles Mponda, John Zimba, Bhahat Lawlley Phiri, Odala Lipenga, Trancizeo Mguntha, Timothy Kumphanda, Joseph |
author_facet | Kalumbi, Martin Henderson Likongwe, Martin Charles Mponda, John Zimba, Bhahat Lawlley Phiri, Odala Lipenga, Trancizeo Mguntha, Timothy Kumphanda, Joseph |
author_sort | Kalumbi, Martin Henderson |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: There has been an increase in use of herbal medicine worldwide. It is either used as a stand-alone or complementary therapy to conventional medicine due to past good experience, poverty and family traditions. In Malawi, there are no regulations governing the supply, acquisition, marketing and quality enforcement of herbal medicine. This compromises its safety thereby exposing consumers to avoidable bacteria and heavy metals leading to various adverse health effects. METHODS: Cross-sectional laboratory experiments were conducted to determine bacterial and heavy metal contamination of herbal medicine commonly sold in Blantyre, Malawi. A total of 47 samples which were in three formulations namely liquid, powder and tablet were used in the experiments. 29 samples were used for bacterial limit tests and 18 samples were used for heavy metal analysis. Bacterial contamination was determined by streak plate method and biochemical tests while heavy metals were determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were calculated using Microsoft excel and SPSS software programs. RESULTS: Twenty out of the 29 samples (68.9%) were contaminated with Bacillus, coagulase negative Staphylococcus, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Citrobacter and other-Coliform bacterial species. Most isolated microorganism was Citrobacter spp. (30%), followed by Bacillus spp. (25%). Out of 20 contaminated samples, 75% were contaminated with coliforms. From these 75% which were contaminated with coliforms, 93.3% of them exceeded WHO regulatory limit (103 CFU/g for enterobacteria). Although liquid samples had the highest level of bacterial contaminants, the count was not statistically different from other formulations (P = 0.058). For heavy metals, lead and cadmium were detected and 67% of the samples had lead levels exceeding regulatory limits. CONCLUSION: Levels of bacterial and lead contamination in herbal medicine from Blantyre markets are far above acceptable limits set by WHO and Canadian guidelines. The use of these herbal medicines is a major risk to the health of consumers. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7812145 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | The Medical Association Of Malawi |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78121452021-01-22 Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi Kalumbi, Martin Henderson Likongwe, Martin Charles Mponda, John Zimba, Bhahat Lawlley Phiri, Odala Lipenga, Trancizeo Mguntha, Timothy Kumphanda, Joseph Malawi Med J Original Research BACKGROUND: There has been an increase in use of herbal medicine worldwide. It is either used as a stand-alone or complementary therapy to conventional medicine due to past good experience, poverty and family traditions. In Malawi, there are no regulations governing the supply, acquisition, marketing and quality enforcement of herbal medicine. This compromises its safety thereby exposing consumers to avoidable bacteria and heavy metals leading to various adverse health effects. METHODS: Cross-sectional laboratory experiments were conducted to determine bacterial and heavy metal contamination of herbal medicine commonly sold in Blantyre, Malawi. A total of 47 samples which were in three formulations namely liquid, powder and tablet were used in the experiments. 29 samples were used for bacterial limit tests and 18 samples were used for heavy metal analysis. Bacterial contamination was determined by streak plate method and biochemical tests while heavy metals were determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were calculated using Microsoft excel and SPSS software programs. RESULTS: Twenty out of the 29 samples (68.9%) were contaminated with Bacillus, coagulase negative Staphylococcus, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Citrobacter and other-Coliform bacterial species. Most isolated microorganism was Citrobacter spp. (30%), followed by Bacillus spp. (25%). Out of 20 contaminated samples, 75% were contaminated with coliforms. From these 75% which were contaminated with coliforms, 93.3% of them exceeded WHO regulatory limit (103 CFU/g for enterobacteria). Although liquid samples had the highest level of bacterial contaminants, the count was not statistically different from other formulations (P = 0.058). For heavy metals, lead and cadmium were detected and 67% of the samples had lead levels exceeding regulatory limits. CONCLUSION: Levels of bacterial and lead contamination in herbal medicine from Blantyre markets are far above acceptable limits set by WHO and Canadian guidelines. The use of these herbal medicines is a major risk to the health of consumers. The Medical Association Of Malawi 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7812145/ /pubmed/33488987 http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mmj.v32i3.8 Text en © 2020 The College of Medicine and the Medical Association of Malawi. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
spellingShingle | Original Research Kalumbi, Martin Henderson Likongwe, Martin Charles Mponda, John Zimba, Bhahat Lawlley Phiri, Odala Lipenga, Trancizeo Mguntha, Timothy Kumphanda, Joseph Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi |
title | Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi |
title_full | Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi |
title_fullStr | Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi |
title_full_unstemmed | Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi |
title_short | Bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in Blantyre, Malawi |
title_sort | bacterial and heavy metal contamination in selected commonly sold herbal medicine in blantyre, malawi |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7812145/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33488987 http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mmj.v32i3.8 |
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