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The safety of herbal medicines has become a major concern to both national health authorities and the general public. Hence their production, quality, distribution and use are regulated. Some medicinal plants commonly used for malaria, diabetes and Tuberculosis and respiratory conditions were evaluated for qual-ity. The objective of the study is to assess some quality specifications, physicochemical and heavy metals of some medicinal plant extracts. The samples were identified, purchased, processed and analyzed using appropriate standards methods specified by WHO and AOAC; while the heavy metals content was analyzed using Atomic Absorption Spectrophometer (AAS). All the analyzed samples passed WHO permissible limit established for heavy metals content, however 42.8 and 21.4% of the samples failed moisture and ash con-tent permissible limits respectively. High level of moisture content will favor microbial and fungal growth and shortens shelf-life of the samples. The WHO maximum permissible limits for moisture and ash content are ≤15 and ≤8. The ash content was also above standard permissible limit in 80% of the samples, this could be associated to improper handling that has resulted to introduction of inorganic substances such as silica and other inorganic matters. The levels of heavy metals content were all below the WHO maximum per-missible limits. The moisture, ash and heavy metals are among the important parameters of medicinal plants that require frequent routine monitoring in order to ensure safety.

Tapinanthus sessilifolius (Loranthaceae) (P. Beauv) Blume. commonly known as African mistletoe is a well-known medicinal plant in Africa and Europe. A bioassay-guided isolation of the plant constituents was carried out to identify potential anti-hyperglycemic agents. The hexane extract was discovered to be active which yielded two triterpenoids; betulinic acid and lupeol, responsible for the activity and their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic techniques. Other compounds from this plant identified by GC-MS technique were palmitic acid, hexadecanoic acid and stearic acid.

This article was initially uploaded to AJOL with the incorrect authors, the AJOL site and PDF have been amended and information displayed is accurate. Plants products have been a source of food and medicines since antiquity. Tapinanthus sessillifolius commonly known as African mistletoe is used in lifestyle preventive medicine to enhance wellbeing and for treatment of various diseases. The heavy metals, macro elements were determined using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer and some physico-chemicals were also evaluated for consistency of the extract. The acute and subchronic toxicity studies of aqueous fresh leaf extract of Tapinanthus sessillifolius was evaluated in albino mice and rats. This is to determine its safety profile by evaluating its effects on feed and water intake, body weight, relative organ weight and changes in some biochemical parameters after 21 days daily oral administration to rats. The results, estimated LD50 to be greater than 2000 mg/kg/bw. The extracts had no adverse effect on the efficiency of food and water consumption. Relative organ weight and the biochemical parameters tested were not significantly different p

Cetirizine Hydrochloride is a non-drowsy second-generation antihistamine and a derivative of piperazine with a half-life of eleven hours. It is used to relieve allergy symptoms such as runny nose, sneezing, rhinitis, urticaria and watery eyes. It is a key adjuvant therapy in management of some covid-19 related symptoms. To assess the quality of five brands of Cetirizine hydrochloride 10mg tablets marketed in Abuja. The weight variation, friability, hardness, disintegration, dissolution tests and HPLC assay were evaluated using USP methods. The hardness and friability of the samples ranged from 2.03kgF to 7.54KgF and 0.00 to 0.90% respectively. The disintegration time were within 5mins, for dissolution, 80.0 to 103.3% of the API in the samples were released within 30mins, the assay ranged from 93.1 to 101.6%. The cetirizine tablets conformed with quality standards.

The popularity of herbal products has been on increase throughout the world; but one major challenge facing it is lack of guaranteed safety with respect to heavy metals contamination. In this study, Chinese, Indian and Nigerian phytomedicine were evaluated for Copper (Cu), Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb) and Zinc (Zn) in order to ascertain and compare their safety or level of contamination. The samples were purchased, processed and analyzed using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (FAAS). The results obtained were presented as mean concentrations of Cu, Cd, Pb and Zn in the Nigerian, Chinese and Indian phytomedicine as 1.23±0.03μg/g, 5.46±0.04μg/g, 5.16±0.01μg/g (Cu), 2.07±0.04μg/g, 9±0.06μg/g, 6.28±0.03μg/g (Cd), 4.42±0.18μg/g, 7.74±0.07μg/g, 5.05±0.06μg/g (Pb) and 2.90±0.04μg/g, 6.40±0.04μg/g, 2.53±0.04μg/g (Zn) respectively. The results indicated all the Nigerian herbal remedies analyzed and 33.33% of the Chinese and Indian herbal remedies contained cadmium above WHO permissible limit (0.3 μg/g) for herbals. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results obtained at p-value 95% (p ˂ 0.050) ranges from significant to non-significant difference of means among the three countries. The correlation coefficient (r) also ranges from negative to strong degree of association. The variability of the heavy metals content could be associated to geographical, environmental, anthropogenic factors and heavy metals absorption potentials of the medicinal plants used. Environmental monitoring of herbal materials is required in order to ensure their safety from chemical pollutants that could lead to bio-accumulation of heavy metals in herbal materials.