DOI: 10.36347/sajp

Pages: 387-390

Contamination of over the counter drugs with micro-organisms whether they are harmful or non pathogenic can bring about changes in their physiochemical characteristics. Although sterility is not required in theofficial compendia for non–sterile pharmaceuticals, the bioburden needed to be within acceptable limit.Therefore, this study was carried out to determine the physical and microbiological quality of thenon-sterile pharmaceutical products. Nine(9) nonsterile pharmaceutical products were examined, six were cough syrups, three (3) were multivitamin syrups. Result showed that 66.7% (6 out of the 9 samples showed growth).Sample A was contaminated gram negative bacterium Pseudomonas species,sampleB, Pseudomonas species,sampleC Bacillus species,sample D Staphylococcus species, sample E, Escherichia coli,sample I staphylococcus species, while samples, F,G,H, had no growth. Though most of the sample microbial load fell within World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation, onlyone brand of cough syrup was heavily contaminated, even when it contained trisodium citrate as a preservative and thus did not meet the official limit. The lower count recorded in some cough syrups is attributed to the incorporation of trisodium citrate together with Sugar content of the syrups which provide high osmotic pressure that is inhibitory to many microorganisms The results showed that the samples tested had satisfactory microbial levels compared to the British Pharmacopeia specification of 103-104 cells per ml except for one of the sample. The most contaminated syrup had a viable count of 1.24 × 106 CFU/ml.