Phytochemicals and Comparative antimicrobial activities of D. velutinum, S. nodiflora, and Honey against Micro-Organism of Public Health Importance

Antimicrobial resistance is a global public health challenge with numerous implications. A growing number of infections are becoming harder to treat due to resistance to the antibiotics used to treat infectious diseases leading to multidrug resistant strains as typically seen in staphylococcus aureus. Microbial resistance to antibiotics has been on the increase leading to increased infection therefore this study evaluated the antimicrobial profile of D. velutinum, S. nodiflora and honey against the multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Shigella spp, Salmonella typhi, Staphylococcus aureus and a fungus; Candida albicans which causes different diseases leading to public health implications using standard laboratory procedures.

The result showed the presence of alkaloids, glycosides, flavonoids, tannins, phlobatanins, saponins, proteins, carbohydrates and anthocyanins across the three samples (D. velutinum, S. nodiflora and honey). The result from the findings showed a dose dependent activity against the selected organisms. It showed that D. velutinum had the best activity against P. aeruginosa, Shigella spp and C. albicans which implied that D. velutinum could be harnessed for the treatment of urinary and joint infections caused by P. aeruginosa and other infections such as shigellosis and candidiasis. The findings showed that S. nodiflora has the best minimum inhibition concentration of 1 against E. coli and S. typhi respectively.

This finding also, suggests that S. nodiflora can be harnessed as an alternative treatment of infectious diseases caused by S. aureus, E. coli and S. typhi and therefore we hereby conclude that plant-based drugs remain an alternative source of therapeutic agents against multidrug resistant micro-organism of public health importance.