Is your herbal medicine safe? Govt lens on report of microbes

Amid rising safety concerns clouding India’s $70-billion herbal medicine market, the government plans to conduct a study to assess the microbial load in the materials used in these traditional medicines, said two government officials in the know of the development.

- Dhirendra Kumar

The study, set to be soon commissioned and completed in four months after that, will identify bacterial and fungal contamination in widely-used herbs and establish microbial limits and testing standards to make the products safer for consumption, they said.

The plan follows findings of an August study by the Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) National Institute of Nutrition, revealing 63.6% of 110 solid herbal formulation samples had exceeded aerobic bacterial limits.