MICROBIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION IN MEDICINAL PLANTS AND VEGETABLES AND THE IMPLICATIONS ON CONSUMER HEALTH: REVIEW

The use of medicinal plants is continuously increasing. However, some quality requirements need to be assessed, such as the microbiological and parasitological contamination of raw material, which can have an important impact on the health of the consumers. This study aimed to identify the occurrence of microbiological and parasitological contamination in medicinal plants, and in order to do so, studies published in the last 20 years in the LILACS, PubMed and SciELO electronic databases were analyzed, using the terms "microbiological", "contamination", "medicinal plants ", "vegetable", "parasite" and their Portuguese correspondents. A total of 24 articles were reviewed, with 9 addressing contamination in medicinal plants and 15 addressing contamination in vegetables. The potential for parasite contamination in medicinal plants and vegetables is similar due to the way they are cultivated and consumed. Eggs from Ancylostoma sp., Ascaris sp., Taenia sp., Fungi Aspergillus sp., Penicillium sp., Fusarium sp., and, in one study, from Salmonella sp were reported. In the analyzed databases, there were no studies assessing the contamination by parasites in medicinal plants. Therefore, further studies are necessary in order to improve the hygienic-sanitary quality of the medicinal plants and vegetables offered to the population.