Interest in the use of medicinal plants in treatment of diseases in Africa has increased tremendously over the past decade. Ingestion of contaminated medicinal plants and herbal medicinal products is regarded as potential source of heavy metal toxicity to both man and animals. Heavy metals are often not well defined in medicine, but include all toxic metals. They are released into the environment by both natural and a variety of anthropogenic sources. The presence of heavy metals in plant tissues is primarily dependent upon their availability and concentration in the soil. They can also be deposited directly on plant surfaces from the atmosphere. Heavy metals are persistent in nature due to their long biological half-life. The major heavy metals of health concern are arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. They are the redox inactive metals and show their toxic effects via bonding to sulphydryl groups of proteins and depletion of glutathione -an antioxidant. In order to ensure quality and safety of herbal drugs, cultivation and collection of medicinal plants in the immediate vicinity of industrial sites which utilize these metals and their compounds, and sites where these metals have been improperly disposed is highly discouraged; because plants from these areas are prone to high concentration of heavy metals, hence, increases human risk of contamination when taken. In addition,

Aqueous and ethanolic leaf and stem extracts of Gongronema latifolium were investigated for the presence and composition of these phytochemicals (alkaloid, flavonoid, phenol, saponin, sterol, terpenoid and cyanogenic glycoside) and their antimicrobial activities at various concentrations against some selected clinical microbes (fungal strains: C. albicans and Aspergillus niger and bacterial strains: Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhi) using standard methods. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed in data analysis. Qualitative and percent quantitative phytochemical results showed that both the aqueous and ethanolic leaf and stem extracts contained these phytochemicals assayed but in varied quantities except cyanogenic glycoside. Antimicrobial studies indicated that both the aqueous and ethanolic leaf and stem extracts of Gongronema latifolium inhibited the growth of the microbes but at varied levels and the inhibition was extracts concentration dependent. The ethanolic extract showed significantly higher inhibition than the aqueous extract in all concentrations except at 150 mg mLG 1 where the reverse was the case. The extracts showed higher inhibition against the fungal strains than the bacterial strains. Inhibitory effect of the leaf extract was significantly higher than those of the stem extract. Antibiotics had a better activity when compared to the extracts at the same concentration. Gongronema latifolium extracts were biostatic in their action, when purified will give a product with higher activity. The data obtained from the study indicated that the plant possessed antimicrobial properties especially antifungal and could be used in the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections but more especially the latter.