<i>In vitro</i> efficacy of five commercially available herbal preparations used in the treatment of typhoid fever in Bamenda Municipality, Cameroon

Abstract

Typhoid fever is an infectious disease that has been a public health concern for millennia. The use of herbal preparations is getting popularity, with an estimated 80% of the world’s population still depending on it for the management of various diseases including typhoid fever. However, data concerning their quality, safety and efficacy is not readily available. Our aim was to determine the in vitro efficacy of some commercially available herbal preparations used in the treatment of typhoid fever in Bamenda Municipality. Five herbal preparations indicated for the treatment of typhoid fever (coded P1 to P5) were bought from various outlets of the herbal producers and serial dilutions made and screened for their activities against clinical isolates of Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Paratyphi using the agar well diffusion and dilution methods. The bacterial growth inhibition zone diameters of the herbal preparations were measured with a transparent ruler and compared with those of some standard antibiotics (ciprofloxacin and ceftriaxone). Two of the herbal preparations (P1 & P2) showed inhibition zone diameters against S. Typhi (20 and 14 mm respectively) while the rest (P3, P4 & P5) were inactive. P1 showed minimal activity on S. Paratyphi while the rest of the herbal preparations (P2, P3, P4 and P5) were inactive at all tested concentrations. The difference between the value of the inhibition zone diameters of the herbal preparations and that of the standard antibiotics on both S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi was statistically significant (p<0.05). It was found out that most of the herbal preparations showed no activity against the tested bacterial isolates contrary to their label bogus claims.

Keywords: Antibacterial activity, Typhoid fever, Herbal preparations, in vitro, Bamenda-Cameroon.