Investigation of Microbial Contamination of natural medicinal Plants(Case study: Naghadeh city)

In regard to side effects of chemical drugs, people are interested in the use of medicinal herbs. Most of these plants are not healthy and there is a probability that the consumer suffers from a microbial contamination. Therefore, the evaluation of the health quality of these plants is important as a significant step toward consumer health and the effectiveness of treatment. According to this, two high-yield plants, Thymes and Poulk were collected randomly from Naghadeh natural habitats and four microbial factors included: total count, Coliform count, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were investigated by using the bacteriological instructions (Double Repeated). The results showed that in both of the samples all of the E. coli, Coliform, and Staphylococcus aureus have existed. The total count of microbial contamination in Poulk samples were higher than Thymes samples. Comparison of results with international standards of the bacterial contamination in spices showed that the amount of examined contamination was higher than the international standard in both of samples. Therefore, the process of gathering, storing and selling these plants to people need to be fully monitored.