ANTI-BACTERIAL ACTIVITY AND PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING OF SOME PLANT EXTRACTS ON BACTERIA ASSOCIATED WITH SEPTICEMIA IN INFANTS

Abstract

This study is composed of two parts. The first part of the study was to evaluate the transmission and epidemiological factors that affect bacterial septicemia in infants while the second part was carried out to examine the anti-bacterial activity and phytochemical screening of some plant extracts and also the effect of the combination of the plant extracts with some commonly dispensed antibiotics on bacteria associated with septicemia in infants. A total of 385 were recruited in for the study. Of the 385 infants, 200(51.9%%) were males while 185(49.1%) were females. 25% of the sample population had positive bacterial blood cultures with a bit more number of males to females 54(27%), 46(23%). In this study, a significant relationship was observed between rural dwellers, those born at home, those that had educational level, socio economic status and fever with development of positive bacterial cultures. Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella aerogenes were the most common gram positive and gram negative isolated organisms together accounted for 40(41.7%) and 31(32.3%) of the isolates respectively. The least organism isolated was E. coli 7(7.3%). Other organisms isolated in this study were E. faecalis 10(10.4%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa 8(8.3%). All the test organisms were susceptible to the extract of Caryophyllus aromaticus, Ocimum basilucum and Punica granatum. Three commonly used antibiotics were also tested for their antibiogram pattern at concentration of 100mg/ml to 1.56mg/ml and compared to the activity of the extracts when used alone and when used in combination. The combination of the extracts and antibiotics when used on the various organisms showed synergistic, additive, indifferent and antagonistic effects. For E. coli, caryophyllus aromaticus (chloroform) was the most active and showed a synergistic, indifferent and synergistic effect when combined with gentamycin, cotrimoxazole and amikacin respectively, for E. faecalis, Vernonia amygdaline (ethanol) was the most active and showed a synergistic effect when combined with gentamycin, cotrimoxazole and amikacin, for Klebsiella, the ethanolic extract of Punica granatum was the most active and showed a synergistic, antagonistic and synergistic effect when combined with gentamycin, cotrimoxazole and amikacin respectively, for Pseudomonas, the ethanolic extract of Punica granatum, was the most active and showed a synergistic effect when combined with gentamycin, cotrimoxazole and amikacin, , for S. aureus, the ethanolic extract of Punica granatum was the most active and showed a synergistic, antagonistic and synergistic effect when combined with gentamycin, cotrimoxazole and amikacin respectively. The result obtained with Punica granatum was particularly interesting since it was the most active in the case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella aerogenes and S.aureus. the MIC and MBC were both reduced especially in cases where a synergistic or additive effect was observed when the extract was combined with antibiotics. All the plants under study revealed to be non-toxic using the 3T3 cell lining.