Antibacterial activity of neem (Azadirachta indica) on Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

Plants have many bio-active compounds which are potential medicinal agents. Herbal medicines are popular in developing countries, but of recent, there has been an increase in the use of herbal medicines in the developed world. Plants provide an alternate source for the search of neem treatments. There are plenty of plants in traditional medicine which have protective and therapeutic properties. Most likely plants will continue to be valued source of neem molecules which may after possible chemical manipulation; provide new and improved drugs. Bacteria resistance to antibiotics is a major problem for clinicians and therapeutic industry and great efforts are been made to screen wide varieties of medicinal plants from the traditional system of medicine with the hope of getting some newer, safer and more effective agents that can be used to fight infectious diseases. Different parts of the neem plant have medicinal properties. The leaf, bark, oil, flower, fruit and seed exhibit great properties which include antiallergic, antifungal, antibiotic, antidermatic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, insecticidal, larvacidal, antimalarial, anti-ulcer and other biological activities. The neem leaf extracts where gotten by solvent extraction method while the anti-bacterial activity was tested using the Kirby Bauer sensitivity test. The ethanolic extract exhibited better and stronger anti-bacterial activity than the aqueous extract. This shows that neem plant has medicinal properties.