THE EFFECT OF RED GINGER (Zingiber offinalle var. Rubra) EXTRACT ON THE GROWTH OF Escherichia coli ISOLATED FROM NATIVE CHICKEN, CATTLE AND PIG

Abstract

Every year, many young farm animals died due to diarrhea or other gastro-intestinal disturbances. This of course was a tremendous loss to the national farm income. For long, Red ginger (Zingiber offinale var. Rubra), a traditional medicinal herb with good reputation, had been used by ancient doctors in many Asian cultures to treat these problems. Research show that E. coli was the main responsible agent for diarrhea. In this conjunction, the objectives of this
study were to examine the effects of Red ginger extracts on the growth of Escherichia coli. A 4 x 5 Factorial design was employed in this investigation. For this purpose, four E. coli isolates collected from native chicken (C), young cattle (A), piglet (Bl) and pig (B2) were used in vitro tests. Fifteen microliters each of five concentrations of Red ginger extract, i.e., 10.00, 7.50, 5.00, 2.50, and 1.25 % were dropped in sterile paper disks. These disks were then laid on the MEU blood agar media previously inoculated with each of the four isolates and were incubated
ovemight at 37 degree C. The test results demonstrated that the higher the concentration of the Red ginger extracts, the higher the bacterial growth inhibition effects obtained. Further tests pointed out that the growth inhibition effects of the Red ginger extracts on E coli isolates C, A, B1, and B2 were significantly different at P<.05. So, it could be concluded that the Red ginger extracts were effective in controlling the E coli growth.