No abstract

This study was designed to ascertain the availability, affordability, and consumption of medicinal plants in Nigeria. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The age group of individuals interviewed was between 10 -59 years.Results show that, herbal medicine awareness and usage was 97 % and 82 % respectively. Most respondents (97 %) admitted to having knowledge of medicinal herbs and their sources of information included family members (58 %), friends (21 %), Herbalist (9 %), and Pharmacy (3 %). Majority (54 %) of the participants took these medicinal herbs in liquid form. On sources of procurement, 17 percent of participants prepared these medicinal plants themselves, 19 % from pharmacies and 17 % from herbalists. Twenty three percent engaged in self-medication, while 21 % obtained their preparations from herbalists.Sixty-five percent said the products are safe and effective, while sixty-nine percent had no side effects while using the products.On affordability, 15 -52 % admitted that herbal medicines are very affordable, while 20 % agreed that they are expensive.Over half of respondents' preferred locally manufactured herbal medicines. Analysis of sources of foreign medicinal goods shows that most (75 %) were from USA. About 78 % of the participants do not take these medicinal herbs with conventional drugs, alcohol (72 %) or cigarette (80 %). Overall, 69 % of our respondents have benefitted from the consumption of medicinal remedies. It is concluded that, the awareness, perception and access to medicinal herbs in Nigeria is increasing which is likely due to dearth of public health facilities. This calls for health administrators to design appropriate programs to implement and ensure the effective monitoring of circulating herbal products.

Cetirizine Hydrochloride is a non-drowsy second-generation antihistamine and a derivative of piperazine with a half-life of eleven hours. It is used to relieve allergy symptoms such as runny nose, sneezing, rhinitis, urticaria and watery eyes. It is a key adjuvant therapy in management of some covid-19 related symptoms. To assess the quality of five brands of Cetirizine hydrochloride 10mg tablets marketed in Abuja. The weight variation, friability, hardness, disintegration, dissolution tests and HPLC assay were evaluated using USP methods. The hardness and friability of the samples ranged from 2.03kgF to 7.54KgF and 0.00 to 0.90% respectively. The disintegration time were within 5mins, for dissolution, 80.0 to 103.3% of the API in the samples were released within 30mins, the assay ranged from 93.1 to 101.6%. The cetirizine tablets conformed with quality standards.

INTRODUCTION: This study was undertaken to assess the properties of Cyperus esculentus tuber starch cross-linked with citric acid from liquid substrates of orange peel derived via the natural solid-state fermentation process; a green-approach. METHODS: The flow properties of the prepared starches were evaluated using standard methods. Water holding capacity, swelling capacity, moisture sorption capacity, gelatinization temperature using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), morphology, Fourier Infrared Spectroscopy and pH of the starches were evaluated. RESULTS: According to the results the pH of the cross-linked starches were lower (3.39-4.07) than that of the native starch (5.25) and flow profile was found to improve. Water holding capacity (90.67-96.69 %) of the cross-linked starches were higher while emulsion capacity (15.33) was similar to that of the native starch (15.33). No change was observed in the morphology of the granules of the cross-linked starches. The infrared spectra of the native and cross-linked starches showed identical peaks; the enthalpy of gelatinization (ΔHgel) of the crosslinked products were found to differ from that of the native starch. The modified starches show propensity of being exploited as binding agents in food and pharmaceutical industries. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The green process of modification has proved to be value addition to the processes of starch modification available.

Purpose: To optimize erythromycin microparticles by in vitro bioassay methods based on its antibacterial activity. Methods: The microparticles were produced by high shear homogenization. The effects of different lipid-to-surfactant ratios were studied. The hydrodynamic size of the different batches was evaluated using dynamic light scattering while bioactive drug load per batch was assessed in agar using bioassay methods. The antimicrobial activities of selected batches were tested ex vivo by determination of reduction in bacteraemia following administration of the microparticles to infected animals. Results: All batches had particles with hydrodynamic sizes < 8.5 microns. Batch 7 with a 2: 5: 2.5 (drug: surfactant: stearic acid) ratio, represents the optimized batch with a hydrodynamic size of 2281 nm, a bioactive drug loading capacity (BLC) of 4.67 ± 0.70 % and bioactive drug entrapment  efficiency (BEE) of 10.51 %. The “microparticle MIC” against Staphylococcus aureus was 1.74 x 10-3 μg/ml. Despite containing lower amounts of erythromycin than the pure sample, the microparticles achieved comparable reduction in bacteraemia, with the optimized batch exhibiting lower variation in bacteraemia than the pure drug. Conclusion: Erythromycin microparticles have been successfully optimized with the aid of bioassay methods which has the advantage that only the bioactive drug concentration is factored in. This method eliminates problems posed by inadequate or non-discriminating chemical assay methods. Keywords: Microparticles, Erythromycin, Gastrointestinal, Bioavailability Antimicrobial, Bioactivity, Encapsulation