Stephen T Odonkor et al./ Elixir Pharmacy 40 (2011) 5499-5503 5499 Introduction Over the past decade, the use of herbal medicine/medicinal plants for medical treatments, has increased tremendously and has become increasing popular in both developing and develop countries (Eisenberg et al., 1998). Herbal medicines are often used to provide first line and basic health services to both the people living in remote areas where it is the only available health service and to people living in poor areas where it offers the only alternative medicine remedy (Reddy, Ansari & Shivkumar, 2000). WHO has described traditional medicine as one of the surest means to achieve total health care coverage of the world's populationn pursuance of its goal of providing accessible and culturally acceptable health care for the global population (green paper). To this effect, WHO has championed the rational and responsible use of traditional plant based medicines, by member states and has developed technical guidelines for the assessment of herbal medicine (WHO, 1998; WHO, 2000). Developing countries undoubtedly rely heavily on non- conventional medicines mainly of herbal sources in their primary healthcare (Akerele, 1993; WHO, 1998). This is justifiable so because developing countries like Ghana has extraordinary richness of its flora, wide range of species. In the developing world, herbal medicine as an ultimate medicine has gained popularity because of typically low side effect profiles (Wilt et al.,2000), low cost (Vanderhoof, 2001) and high level of acceptance by patients and the majority of the population. Some managed care organizations now offer these therapies as an expanded benefit (Langyan &Ahuja, 2005). In Ghana the uses of herbal medicine is premised upon high cost of the conventional pharmaceutical dosage forms, inaccessibility of the orthodox medical services to a vast majority of people particularly in the rural areas and the reservations by the public due to some reports , substandard or counterfeit drugs in the market. Product quality is obviously the major criteria that could affect not only the efficacy but also the safety of patients or consumers of herbal products (Jutaputti, 2001). A numbers of identifiable problems are associated with the use of herbal medicines which include lack of precise dose and unhygienic method of preparation. Microbial contamination frequently involves in herbal products is not only as a result of unhygienic preparation but also from plants. Therefore, microbial contents in herbal products should be evaluated. This accounts for the reason why WHO has developed technical guidelines for the assessment of herbal medicine (WHO, 1998; WHO, 2000). These guidelines are important because, unlike chemically defined medicinal products, the biopharmaceutical quality and behavior of HMPs are often not well documented (European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, 2003). The WHO Good Manufacturing Practice Guidelines have provided technical guidelines to national regulatory authorities, scientific organizations, and manufacturers to undertake an assessment of the documentation/submission/dossiers in respect of herbal medicinal products. In Ghana the food and drugs board is responsible for drug administration and control of the quality of medicinal products including generally available in the market. Elixir Pharmacy 40 (2011) 5499-5503 Microbiological quality of some herbal medicinal products sold in Accra, Ghana Stephen T Odonkor 1 , Juliet Osei 2 , Alfred K Anim 2 , Cynthia Laar 2 and Mavis Okyere 3 1 Radiological and Medical Sciences Research Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission P. O. Box LG 80, Legon-Accra, Ghana 2 Nuclear Chemistry and Environmental Science Research Center, National Nuclear Research Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission P. O. Box LG 80, Legon-Accra, Ghana. 3 National Blood Transfusion Service P. O. Box KB 78, Korle-Bu, Accra. ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to investigate the microbial quality of 10 different Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPs) sourced sampled from traditional medicine distributors and retail pharmacy outlets in Accra, Ghana. A total of 10 herbal medicinal products that were made for in vitro administration were randomly sampled in triplicates for analysis. Microbial Count was performed on the products. Isolation and identification various microbes from herbal medicinal samples were done also done. The results show that all of the products had their manufacturing and expiry dates stated, 5 (50%) products have been registered by FDB. The microbial load of the products varied considerably. The lowest microbial count was 2.2 x10 3 cfu/ml and the highest count was 6.2 x10 3 cfu/ml. Two (20%) of the products showed no bacteria growth. The predominant organism isolated was Staphylococcus aureaus and Bacillus spp. Only one sample had fungi isolate from it. However, E. coli, Klebsiella spp and Salmonella spp was not isolated in any of the 10 samples. There is need for constant monitoring and control of the standards of herbal medicines products in the Ghanaian market. © 2011 Elixir All rights reserved. Pharmacy ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received: 9 September 2011; Received in revised form: 31 October 2011; Accepted: 16 November 2011; Keywords Herbal medicine, Bacteria count, Isolates, Contamination. Available online at www.elixirjournal.org Tele: E-mail addresses: stodonkor@yahoo.co.uk © 2011 Elixir All rights reserved