IN VITRO ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF MORINGA OLEIFERA LAM. LEAF ON SOME SELECTED CLINICAL FUNGAL STRAINS

ISITUA; C. C.; IBEH; I. N.; OLAYINKA; J. N.

Volume : VI, Issue : VIII, August - 2016

IN VITRO ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF MORINGA OLEIFERA LAM. LEAF ON SOME SELECTED CLINICAL FUNGAL STRAINS

Isitua, C. C. , Ibeh, I. N. , Olayinka, J. N.

Abstract :

Human beings all over the world face health problems from cradle to the grave. Some of these health problems such as microbial infections account for high percentage of morbidity among populations in different parts of the world and so far no known cures have been documented for some of these ailments. Literatures suggest that some of the drugs currently used to manage these ailments tend to precipitate other health complications thus creating the need for newer drugs and therapeutic agents. The antifungal properties of Moringa oleifera leaf was investigated in this study. The susceptibility of some clinical fungal strains to M. oleifera leaf was determined using agar diffusion and microoth dilution methods with treatments arranged in a completely randomized design and replicated four times. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the leaf extract against the fungi were determined. The susceptibility test carried out on Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus and Cryptococcus neoformans showed susceptibility of these isolates to different concentrations of the plant extract. The ethanol extract showed a higher potency. Among the fungal isolates tested, A. flavus showed the highest susceptibility while A. niger showed the least susceptibility and the MIC for aqueous extract was 128µg/ml and 32µg/ml for the ethanol extract. The extracts showed comparable zones of inhibition to the conventional antibiotic (Nystatin) used. M. oleifera leaf extracts showed an appreciable inhibitory activity against the clinical fungal isolates tested which implies its effectiveness in infection therapy particularly those caused by the organisms under study.