Evaluation of Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities of Crude Extract and Fractions of Morinda citrifolia Fruit on Multiple Drug Resistant Clinical Isolates

Background: Morinda citrifolia fruits are consumed by humans in tropical areas of Africa due to their nutritional and medicinal values.

Methods: The fresh fruit of M. citrifolia were harvested, washed with clean water, dried under a shade, pulverized and extracted with methanol in a Soxhlet’s extractor. The crude methanolic filtrate was subjected to phytochemical analysis and fractionation using ethyl acetate, butanol, distilled water and n-hexane. The isolates, which comprises Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi and Candida albicans, were collected from diarrhoiec stool of patients aged 0-5 years using standard procedure. Antibiotic susceptibility assay was carried out using disc diffusion method. The antimicrobial susceptibility test of the fruit extract and fractions was carried out using agar well diffusion method.

Results: All the isolates were susceptible to the extract and the fractions with MICs range from 3.125 mg/mL to 12.5 mg/mL. S. aureus and S. typhi were resistant to more than two conventional antibiotics.

Conclusion: Crude and fractions of M. citrifolia have excellent antibacterial and antifungal activities against multiple antibiotic resistant strains of S. aureus, S. typhi and C. albicans.