Abstract:
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.
