Abstract:
The high patronage of herbal medicinal
products in Ghana for the treatment of diverse dis ease conditions raises concerns about patient safety,
given that much of the raw materials for production
are obtained from the wild or farmlands potentially
exposed to varied agrochemical residues. Therefore,
the work sought to investigate the contamination of
herbal medicinal products with pesticide residues and
assess the potential risk posed to patients. As a result,validated gas chromatography with mass spectrom etry as a detector was used to determine forty-two
pesticides in thirty herbal medicinal products. The
performance parameters of the method such as linear ity, accuracy, and precision were found as acceptable.
Pesticide residues such as chlorpyrifos and/or bifen thrin were found in 4/30 herbal medicinal products.
Specifcally, 3/30 herbal medicinal products contained
only one pesticide, while 1/30 was contaminated with
both pesticide residues. The levels of pesticide residue
contamination ranged between 2.5 and 5.0 µg/kg. The
acute hazard quotient and chronic hazard quotient for
the two pesticide residues were evaluated and ranged
between 0.21 and 0.92% and between 8.21×10−4 and
5.88× 10−3%. The detected pesticide residue levels are
below the maximum residue limit values, which may
not cause acute and chronic health risks due to intake
of the selected herbal medicinal product. Neverthe less, patient safety and potential public health risk can
be reduced by regular monitoring, and regulation of
pesticide residue levels in herbal medicinal products.
