Susceptibility of multidrug resistant enterotoxigenic escherichia coli to Saponin extract from phyllanthus niruri

Escherichia coli were isolated from 140 samples of blood,urine,stool and water made up of 15.7%,42.9%,30.0% and 25.7%,respectively. from the samples,71.9% enterotoxigenic e. coli (etec),14.3% enteropathogenic e. coli (epec),7.1% enterohemorrhagic e. coli (ehec) and 7.1% enteroinvasive e. coli (eiec) occurred as diarrheagenic e. coli. of the etec (240) isolates tested for susceptibility to eight conventional antibiotics,110 (46.0%) showed resistance to all the tested antimicrobial agents. however,of the resistant strains; 24 (22.0%) were multidrug resistant. these were tested against 3.0 mg/ml of saponin extract from phyllanthus niruri and 13 (55.0%) of these were susceptible to the saponin. the antimicrobial activities of saponin from p. niruri are of interest since the crude extract was effective at concentration of 3.0 mg/ml to multiple resistant isolates of etec.