THE
MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY CONTROL OF SOME EXPECTORANT SYRUPS
FOUND IN THE MARKET
Ahmet AKIN* °, Erkan ERK*
*Ankara University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of
Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Tandogan, Ankara, TURKEY.
°Corresponding Author
Summary:
Recently, succesful results were obtained about the pharmaceutical
preparations that they haven’t been contaminated
with pathogenic microorganisms. In spite of this, these
products seem to contain microorganisms, since the formation
of infections could not be prevented. From this point
of view, we have studied 65 expectorant syrups from different
manufacturers with different batch numbers for microbiological
quality control. These expectorant syrups were made up
of 13 different formulations. We tested five different
batches from each formulation.
The microbiological quality control of the syrups were
carried out according to USP XXI and BP 1980 methods,
that were somewhat modified by us. In the 65 expectorant
syrups, the results were as follows: In 37 %, aerobic
bacteria and in 4.6 %, fungi were found, which exceeds
FIB standards. We isolated E.coli (4.6 %) in our three
samples; P.vurgaris (3.1 %) in two samples; B.subtilis
(1.5 %) in one sample; S.epidermidis (1.5 %) in one sample
and C.albicans (4.6 %) in three samples.
We did not isolate Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Klebsiella
spp., Pseudomonas spp. and Streptococcus spp. in any of
the samples.
Keywords:
Syrups, Expectorant, Microbiological Quality.