Antibacterial efficacy of selected plants traditionally used as detergent in rural Ethiopia

Antibacterial activities of traditional plants were commonly used all over the world including Ethiopia. Among those plants that are used as traditional detergents like for personal hygiene in most developing countries were well practiced. Hand hygiene is basic part of personal hygiene which is a fundamental practice in the prevention, control, and reduction of communicable diseases. The prevalence of hand hygiene related diseases including diarrhea and the current emerging bacterial resistance are the big global health challenges but the degree of the problem is greater in developing countries. Use of traditional plants for hand hygiene were not given due consideration as detergent due to the fact that their antibacterial activity for cleaning has not been yet well understood. The purpose of this study is therefore to determine the antibacterial efficacy of traditional plant used as detergent in most rural and some peri urban areas of Ethiopia. Selected plants traditionally used as detergents (Phytolacca dodecandra fruit, Rumex nepalensis leaf, Grewia ferruginea bark and Grewia ferruginea leaf) were collected from surroundings of Jimma town based on ethnobotanical information. An acetone extract of these plants were tested against reference and isolated bacteria for their antibacterial efficacy using disc diffusion and macro dilution methods. The preliminary evaluations of the extracts were exhibited appreciable inhibitory activities against the tested bacteria isolates except for P. aeroginosa at concentration of 200mg/mL .The diameter of inhibition zone ranged from 8.0±1.0 mm to 11.0±1.0 mm.The MIC values of the extracts were ranged from 6.25 mg/ml to 50 mg/ml whereas the MBC values were ranged from 12.5 mg/ml to 100 mg/ml against isolated bacteria except P. aeroginosa. Among these plants, Rumex nepalensis leaf, G.ferruginea leaf and G.ferruginea bark have shown the best antibacterial activity against salmonella species. Phytochemical qualitative analyses were also made to identify the level of antibacterial constituents of the extracts. The variation on antibacterial activity could be attributed to the level of phytochemical constituents of the extracts like saponins, tannins, flavinoids, terpinoids and reducing sugar. This finding suggests the use of the plants extract for formulation of hand sanitizers and as active ingredients for production of antibacterial soaps to improve public health problems.