Microbial contamination of herbal medicines : a review

Abstract

In this review, we deal with the safety of herbal medicines, regarding the levels of microbial contaminants and mycotoxins, which must be in accordance with the requirements present in the national and international official compendium. The high availability of these products without due compliance with the recommended quality standards, makes the use of these medicines an important public health problem that can, in more serious situations, lead to death of consumers. Thus, we have gathered several scientific articles that showed failures along the production process of herbal medicines, resulting in excessive contamination by, mainly, bacteria and fungi, but also by mycotoxins. We also demonstrated the different methods applied in the determination of microorganisms. Thus, we came to alert the population and the scientific community about the relevance of this problem, since the negligence during the manufacturing stages of herbal medicines may cause more damage than benefits to consumers.