Abstract

This study was undertaken to investigate the antibacterial activities of three medicinal plant extracts and their synergistic effect on Staphylococcus aureus isolated from burn wounds. A total of 50 swab samples of burn wounds were collected from burn wound patients attending Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki and screened for S. aureus using standard microbiological techniques. Three plant materials (Cucurbita pepo leaf, Alchornea cordifolia leaf, and Terminalia ivorensis bark root) were dried under room temperature and ground into powdered form. Twenty grams of each plant materials was soaked in 100 ml of solvents (cold, warm water, ethanol, and methanol) for 24 h and filtered with muslin cloth. The crude extracts were mixed with dimethyl sulphoxide and subjected to 2 folds serial dilution. The results show that out of the 50 burn wounds swab samples collected, 32(64%) were positive for S. aureus. The susceptibility test results revealed that Terminalia ivorensis was the most active against the S. aureus isolates with an inhibition zone diameter (IZD) of 20 mm in warm water solvent at 100 mg/ml and 10 mm at 50 mg/ml. Results also revealed that a combination of ethanol extracts of A. cordifolia and root bark of T. ivorensis yielded 29 mm IZD. The combination of these two extracts exhibited a higher IZD against the S. aureus isolates.  C. pepo, A. cordifolia, and T. ivorensis extracts could serve as putative agents for the development of novel drugs for the treatment of wound infections caused by S. aureus.

Key words: Medicinal plant, sensitivity, synergistic, bacteriological, bacteria and Staphylococcus aureus.