STUDIES ON EFFICACY OF SOME MEDICINAL PLANT EXTRACTS AGAINST SELECTED ENTERIC PATHOGENS

Abstract

newline The constant increase of multidrug resistant pathogens has become a severe newlinethreat to public health and a foremost concern for infection control practitioners newlineworldwide. Though, overuse of antibiotics has become the major factor for the newlineemergence and dissemination of multidrug resistant strains of several groups of newlinemicroorganisms. newline Multidrug resistant strains are widely distributed in hospitals and are newlineincreasingly being isolated from community acquired infections. All this has resulted newlinein severe consequences including increased treatment failure and health care cost. newlineThis has urged the microbiologists all over the world to formulate new antimicrobial newlineagents and evaluation of the efficacy of natural plant products as the substitute for newlinechemical antimicrobial agents. newline Enteric bacteria are major causes of food-borne illnesses and gastrointestinal newlineproblems in the developing countries and human beings around the world. Enteric newlinebacteria belongs to the family enterobacteriaceae, which are large group of Gram newlinenegative, peritrichously flagellated or non-flagellated straight rods with simple newlinenutritional requirements. They grow best under aerobic condition but also ferment newlinecarbohydrates by an anaerobic pathway. newline The wide use of antibiotics in the treatment of bacterial infections has led to newlinethe emergence and spread of resistant strains. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus newlineaureus (MRSA) is a major cause of nosocomial infections. MRSA infections are very newlinedifficult to cure because MRSA strains are resistance against almost all clinically newlineavailable antibiotics. newline Enteric Pathogenic bacteria have developed resistance against existing newlineantibiotics due to indiscriminate use of antimicrobial drugs to treat the infectious newlinediseases. The worldwide emergence of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, newlineStaphylococcus aureus and many other â-lactamase producers has become a major newlinetherapeutic problem (Maji et al., 2010). Medicinal plants are the boon of nature to newlinecure a number of ailments of human