Antimicrobial activity of allium sativum extract against antecubital fossa bacteria / Nurul Huda Nabilah Halim

Certainly, different techniques of reducing a load of bacterial contamination at antecubital fossa have been attempted and always being improvised especially for phlebotomy procedure. People have tried to explore the healing power of different plant extract and treat disease. Several studies have reported that there are some contradict about the effectiveness of commercial antiseptic in reduce bacterial contamination. Some studies on hand disinfection with alcohol-based hand rubs showed that during the hand rubbing procedure, users are exposed to these alcohols not only through dermal contact but also via inhalation. This is due to physical and chemical properties volatizing from alcoholic solutions or gels into the air. Therefore, identification of antimicrobial activity in Allium sativum (garlic) against bacterial skin especially on antecubital fossa was studied for the potential uses as alternatives antiseptic. Three types of extracts were used in this study which were aqueous garlic extract (AGE), ethanolic garlic extract (EGE) and ethanolic garlic powder extract (EGPE). Their effects were measured against normal flora and pathogenic bacteria namely Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Staphylococcus epidermidis (ATCC 1228), Streptococcus pyogenes (ATCC 25922) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 10145) using well diffusion technique. EGPE was unable to produce any inhibition zone against all tested bacteria. Out of four bacteria tested, three bacteria were found to be sensitive towards AGE and EGE including S. aureus, S.epidermidis and S. pyogenes. On the other hand, P. aeruginosa only sensitive to EGE and exhibited high resistance to AGE. AGE and EGE showed promising inhibitory activity even in low concentration against S. pyogenes with minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of 125 mg/ml and 15.63 mg/mL, respectively. Both extracts showed significant antimicrobial effect against S. aureus at 62.5 mg/mL while S. epidermidis at 7.81 mg/mL. EGE also showed significant antimicrobial effect against P. aeruginosa until with MIC value of 62.5 mg/mL. In conclusion, Allium sativum extracts showed substantial antimicrobial activity against the majority of the tested bacteria (p < 0.05) and it can be a good source of antimicrobial agents thus it can become an alternative to the commercial alcohol-based antiseptic.