Medicinal plant materials

Anon. Quality Control Methods for Medicinal Plant Materials. Geneva, Switzerland World Health Organization, 1998. 

Because of their increasing use worldwide, plant materials used in over-the-counter preparations, home remedies, or as raw materials for pharmaceutical preparations are receiving more and more attention. In 1998, WHO published a book. Quality Control Methods for Medicinal Plant Materials to fulfill the needs of quality control laboratories and to provide a basis for the development of national standards. ... 

WHO. Basic Tests for Drugs, Pharmaceutical Substances, Medicinal Plant Materials and Dosage Forms WHO Geneva, 1998. 

Contamination with micro-organisms When 62 samples of medicinal plant material and 11 samples of herbal tea were examined in Croatia, fungal contamination was found to be abundant (159). Aspergillus flavus, a known producer of aflatoxins was present in 11 and one sample respectively. Mycotoxins were found in seven of the samples analysed. 

Hamischfeger, G. (2000). Proposed guidelines for commercial collection of medicinal plant material. Journal of Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants, 7 (1) 43-50. 

Medicinal plants can offer alternative remedies with tremendous opportunities compared to synthetic modem pharmaceuticals. They not oidy provide access and affordable medicine to poor people they can also generate income, employment and foreign exchange for developing countries. Many traditional healing herbs and plant parts have been shown to have medicinal value, especially in the rural areas and these can be used to prevent, alleviate or cure several human diseases. The safety of raw medicinal plant materials clearly provides a compelling rational for both additional scientific study and national health care pohcies that can address the judicious use of traditional medicines to improve the quality and quantity of these materials and to ensure their efficacy. 

Anonymous. WHO Quality control methods for medicinal plant materials, Geneva, 1998. 

The identity and quality of herbal material, herbal preparations and of finished herbal products should be tested as described in the Quality control methods for medicinal plant materials (d). The minimum requirement for the technical equipment is for instruments to perform the tests described in (d). Moreover, each country should develop this basic requirement for technical equipment further, according to the country s needs. 

Quality control methods for medicinal plant materials. Geneva, World Health Organization (unpublished document WHO/PHARM/92. 559/rev. 1 available on request from Division of Drug Management and Policies, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland), 1992. 

Markers Constituents of a medicinal plant material which are chemically defined and of interest for control purposes. Markers are generally employed when constituents of known therapeutic activity are not found or are uncertain, and may be used to calculate the quantity of plant material or preparation in the finished product. When starting materials are tested, markers in the plant material or preparation must be determined quantitatively. 

Medicinal Plant Material (Crude Plant Material, Vegetable Drug) Medicinal plants or parts thereof collected for medicinal purposes. 

Medicinal plant materials should be stored in separate areas. The storage area should be well ventilated and equipped in such a way as to protect against the entry of insects or other animals, especially rodents. Effective measures should be taken to limit the spread of animals and micro-organisms introduced with the plant material and to prevent cross-contamination. Containers should be located in such a way as to allow free air circulation. 

In addition to the data called for in sections 14 and 18 of Good manufacturing practices for pharmaceutical products (1), the specifications for medicinal plant materials should as far as possible include the following ... 

The personnel of quality control units should have particular expertise in herbal medicinal products to be able to carry out identification tests, and check for adulteration, the presence of fungal growth or infestations, lack of uniformity in a consignment of medicinal plant materials, etc. 

Sampling must be carried out with special care by personnel with the necessary expertise since medicinal plant materials are composed of individual plants or parts of plants and are therefore heterogeneous to some extent... 

Further advice on sampling, visual inspection, analytical methods, etc., is given in Quality control methods for medicinal plant materials (2). 

Extraction of botanical polysaccharides has traditionally been successfully carried out using the popular method of hot water extraction [1,2,5,71-77,85] and it is applicable in a variety of plant cell wall structures and water solubility of polysaccharide constitutes [65]. Briefly, the procedure involves large quantity of medicinal plant material/mushroom to be powdered, and then homogenized to maintain uniformity within and between the samples collected at different times. The powdered sample is then subjected to hot water extraction by autoclaving for approximately 2 h at 121 °C [5]. Autoclaved sample is filtered after allowing it to cool to room temperature, and the supernatant is then precipitated using 95% aqueous ethanol (supema-tant EtOH=l 4, v/v) for about 15 h at 2.5 °C to remove nonpolar... 

Isakov Shi (1969) Study of medicinal plant material used by Kyrgyz people. Synopsis of dissertation for the degree of Ph.D. in medicine, Ashkabad (in Russian)... 

WHO (1998) Quality Control Methods for Herbal Medicinal Plant Material. Geneva World Health Organization. 

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