Assessment of Microbial Qualities of Some Cough Syrups and Multivitamins Marketed in Pokhara, Nepal

Abstract

Recently, the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals have improved the quality of non-sterile pharmaceuticals in such a way that such products contain only minimal bioburden. However, the production of sub-standard cough syrups and multivitamin syrups may cause non-therapeutic effect in patients, particularly in children. For this reason, this study was conducted to evaluate the microbiological quality of cough syrup and multivitamin syrups marketed in Pokhara, Nepal. Different brands of 15 cough syrups and 15 multivitamin syrups were collected from different vendors of Pokhara and the spread plate technique was performed to enumerate the microbial contaminant from the collected samples. Among 15 cough syrups, 12 samples were found to be contaminated with bacteria and nine samples were found to be contaminated with fungi. Similarly, among 15 multivitamin syrups, 10 were found to be contaminated with bacteria whereas 12 were found to be contaminated with fungi. Escherichia coli was not isolated in any samples. Overall, 14(93.33%) of cough syrup and 13(86.67%) of multivitamin syrups were found to be contaminated by either bacteria, fungi, or by both which exceeded the acceptance limit of International Pharmacopeia. The prevalence of these microorganisms in pharmaceutical products such as syrups samples may indicate the unhygienic condition, defect in production, poor adoption of Good Manufacturing Practice, ineffective preservatives and inadequate quality control. Though these products fall under non-sterile pharmaceutical products, so they need not require sterility but these drugs must conform to the microbiological purity criteria set in the appropriate pharmacopeial standard. These contaminated syrups explain the poor treatment and complicacy of the uncompromised people and the sick children.

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“…High bacterial contamination of some cough syrups and multivitamins has been reported in Pokhara, Nepal (Gurung and Rai, 2021). Also, moisture content (water activity) has been shown to be a favorable condition for the growth of microorganisms in nonsterile pharmaceutical products (Murtaza et al, 2021).…”