A Comparative Study of the Antibacterial Activity of Clove and Rosemary Essential Oils on Multidrug Resistant Bacteria

Abstract

The essential oils of Syzygium aromaticum (clove bud) and Rosmarinus officinalis L. (rosemary) were obtained by hydro-distillation. The antimicrobial activity of  clove bud oil and rosemary oil was investigated by agar well diffusion method against four multidrug resistant strains namely Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus feacalis as well as two standard strains, Staphylococcus aureusATCC29213 and Pseudomonas aeruginosaATCC27853. Both essential oils exhibited inhibitory effects towards all the test organisms, clove essential oil had antibacterial activity little higher than of rosemary oil, MICs ranged from 0.312% (v/v) to 1.25% (v/v) for all tested bacteria while MICs for rosemary oil ranged from 0.312% (v/v) to 5 % (v/v). Based on this finding, it may be suggested that these essential oils may be used as natural antibacterial agents to treat infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria.