Antibacterial Activity of Crude Extracts from Root and Stem barks of Albizia anthelmintica against Salmonella typhi

<strong>ABSTRACT</strong>: Antimicrobial resistance is a growing serious worldwide public health problem in both hospital and community acquired infections. Infection caused by Salmonella typhi remains an important public health problem, particularly in developing countries. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the antibacterial activity of crude extracts from root and stem barks of Albizia anthelmintica against Salmonella typhi. The root and stem barks of the plant were collected and shade air dried and ground to powder and crude extraction was done by maceration method with ethanol and chloroform independently. The antibacterial activity of the crude extracts was evaluated using agar-well diffusion method and the inhibitory zones were recorded in millimeters. The crude extracts were tested against Salmonella typhi at concentration of 50mg/ml, 100mg/ml and 200mg/ml. The 30µl of 2.5mg/ml Chloramphenicol and 30µl of extraction solvents were positive and negative controls respectively. Ethanol root bark crude extract has antibacterial activity at a concentration of 50mg/ml, 100mg/ml and 200mg/ml with zone of inhibition 16.3mm, 19.7mm and 26.8mm while with chloroform at the same concentration has 13.2mm, 15.8mm and 18.9mm respectively. Similarly the ethanol stem bark crude extract was shown antibacterial activity at concentrations of 50mg/ml, 100mg/ml and 200mg/ml, with inhibition zone of 15.6mm, 17.5mm and 20.3 respectively. Chloroform stem bark crude extract at concentration of 100mg/ml and 200mg/ml has inhibition zone of 7.6mm and 11.7mm, but at concentration of 50mg/ml did not shown any antibacterial activity. The crude extracts of root and stem barks of Albizia anthelmintica inhibit growth of Salmonella typhi with minimum inhibitory concentration of 6.25 mg/ml and 12.5 mg/ml respectively. But below these concentrations they did not shown inhibitory activity. This study only shown the antibacterial activity of root and stem barks of Albizia anthelmintica against Salmonella typhi. However, further studies needed to screen phytochemicals and antibacterial activity of the rest plant parts with different extraction solvents.