In vitro antibacterial activity of common antibiotics and herb extracts to clinical isolates of escherichia coli collected from UTI patients

Introduction: Urinary tract infection (UTIs) is the most common infection experienced by both male & Female. Effective antibacterial properties of some plant extracts have made our interest to compare herbal drugs rather than chemotherapeutic drugs against E. coli due to increasing propensity of resistance rate of commercial antibiotics.Method: Human clinical isolates of E. coli were collected from a local hospital where the strains were isolated from urinary tract infected (UTI) patients. All of the isolates were identified on the basis of several morphological, physiological and biochemical tests. Antibiotic sensitivity pattern of the E. coli isolates were determined against four commercial antibiotic discs by disc diffusion method. A total of 18 herb extracts from 17 randomly selected herbs were used in this study to screen their sensitivity against the isolates.Results: 45% of the isolates were found to be resistant to multiple antibiotics and termed as multi-drug resistant (MDR) isolates. A total of 18 herb extract were used to evaluate their antibacterial properties where 6 herb extracts were found to possess potential antibacterial activity against the E. coli isolates. Leaf extracts of Spondias pinnata and Tamarindus indica showed 100% antibacterial activity against all of the E. coli isolates. In addition, 45% of the isolates exhibited sensitivity for the fruit extracts of Nerium oleander followed by its flower extracts (35%).Conclusion: The leaf extract of Spondias pinnata and Tamarindus indica could be used in future days to cure E. coli associated UTI of patient as 100% antibacterial activity obtained by these two medicinal plants.