Background:

Moringa oleifera (Moringaceae) is a highly praised plant that has spread in many tropical and subtropical countries. It has an impressive variety of medicinal uses with a high medicinal value.

Aim:

. To evaluate the in vitro anti-microbial activity of aqueous and hydro-alcoholic extracts of Moringa oleifera Lam. cultivated in Cuba.

Methods:

The MTT method was used to evaluate in vitro cytotoxicity and antiviral activity of different concentrations of the extracts from dry leaves of Moringa oleifera against Type 1 Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-1), and type 2 Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-2). The determinations were made by microdilution, antimicrobial activity against the reference bacterial strains, and clinical isolates, then the minimum inhibitory concentration was calculated (MIC).

Results:

The hydroalcoholic extract showed toxicity at the 125 μg/ml concentration, whereas the aqueous extract stopped being toxic at 500 μg/ml in the Vero cells within the range of the concentrations evaluated. None of the extracts inhibited the in vitro replication of the HSV-1 and HSV-2 viruses, but they showed a powerful activity against the bacterial strains and yeast assayed at different levels.

Conclusions:

The extracts did not show in vitro antiviral activity against HSV-1 and HSV-2 in Vero cells, whereas the antibacterial activity was strong, suggesting that the leaves of Moringa oleifera might be a good candidate for an antibacterial agent from natural products against the different pathogens.