Microbial quality of some herbal solid dosage forms

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.