In-vitro antimicrobial activities of Euphorbia hirta against some clinical isolates

This study was carried out to investigate the antibacterial activities of both ethanol and water extracts of Euphorbia hirta against some pathogens: Escherichia coli, Haemophilus influenzae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi and Shigella dysenteriae. The agar diffusion method was used to determine the antibacterial activities of the extracts against the pathogens while the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined by graphical method. Antibacterial sensitivity test indicated that the extracts of E. hirta inhibited the growth of all the organisms to varying degree. Significantly little or no zone of inhibition was observed when E. hirta extracts were tested on H. influenzae. Dry leaf extracts of E. hirta produced the highest zones of inhibition on Salmonella typhi. The dry extracts produced MIC values ranging between 2.78mg/ml to 41.92mg/ml for all the organisms while that of the fresh ethanol extracts ranged from 0.27mg/ml to 20.13mg/ml.