ABSTRACT

 Twelve medicated soaps; Crusader, Septol, Carat, 14days, Funbact, Lifebouy, Safeguard, Tetmosol, TCP, Dettol, Delta and Antigal was investigated for their antibacterial activities. The results revealed that Crusader medicated soap exhibited a high level of antibacterial activity, resulting in greater zones inhibition,25mm against Staphylococcus aureus, 20mm against Escherichia coli and 15mm against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Antigal exhibited the least zone of inhibition, Staphylococcus aureus 9mm, Escherichia coli 5mm and was not active against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Significant differences (p<0.05) were observed on the concentrations used. Identification of the bacterial strains was done by standard microbiological techniques. which include Gram staining and biochemical testing. Determination of minimal inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal activity of the strains were performed by the disc-agar diffusion method. It was found that Gram positive Staphylococcus aureus was very sensitive to the antibacterial soaps used. while Gram negative Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed resistance to some of the soaps. It is quite possible that antibacterial soaps have the antibacterial agents that can either kill or inhibit the bacterial cells. It might be possible that some bacterial strains become resistant which leads to their survival even at high concentrations of soaps. The most resistant bacterium to all the soaps was Pseudomonas aeruginosa