Evaluation of microbial quality of herbal tea pharmaceutical products found in the Egyptian market

The presence of microbial contaminants in non-sterile pharmaceutical herbal preparations not only cause spoilage of products but also proved to be a potential health hazard to the consumer. Accordingly, non-sterile preparations have to pass microbial limit tests. The aim of present study was to evaluate the microbial quality of oral herbal non-sterile pharmaceutical preparations available in the Egyptian market.A total of 32 non-sterile herbal tea pharmaceutical preparations were subjected to microbial limit testing which included microbial enumeration tests using the spread plate technique and tests for specified microbial contaminants using standard conventional techniques. The data was interpreted according to the United states Pharmacopoeia (USP) guidelines. All the tested products contain bacteria within the limits stated in USP for botanicals treated with boiling water, while 5 products (15.6%) have total fungal counts that exceed the USP limits. Two out of the 32 tested products (6.25%) were contaminated with E. coil while 4 products (12.8%) found to have S. aureus. Our results indicates that the microbiological quality of the examined products was, in general, adequate. with exception of few products.