Abstract

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF HERBAL HAND WASH

Abhishek Sharma, Reenu Yadav, Vidhi Guha, Udit N. Soni and Jay Ram Patel*

ABSTRACT

Microbial infection has emerged as a critical issue in children and hospital care outcome, which can leads to substantial morbidity and mortality. Unhygienic hands of health care workers are the primary routes of transmission of infection directly to patients and in children it can lead to several serious health issues. So that, it brings up the use of antiseptic for hand washing purposes. There are several commercial antiseptic available in market having chemical sanitizers as a base which has some disadvantages, adverse and side effects. Their frequent and long time use can lead to some side effects and skin irritation. Madhuca indica is one of the most widely used and well-documented medicinal plants in the world. Present study aimed to formulate effective, safe and nontoxic herbal hand wash using barks of Madhuca indica emphasis on safety and efficacy and to avoid the risk posed by synthetic antimicrobials. Disc diffusion method was utilized for evaluation of the antimicrobial activity against skin pathogens of the prepared herbal hand. Its efficacy was checked and compared with the standard commercial hand wash. Results revealed that Madhuca indica based formulation was more efficient in reducing the number of organisms from hands than the commercial antiseptic soaps thus it can be used as an antiseptic soap based handwash with less or no side effects.

Keywords: Herbal hand wash, Formulation, Evaluation, Madhuca indica Extracts, pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa.