Evaluation of Antimicrobial Susceptibility of Salmonella Isolated from Household Cockroaches Using Carica Papaya Leaf Extract

The human pathogen, Salmonella, constitutes a significant source of human infections through poultry products. Salmonella is a bacteria that exists in both domestic and wild animals, and there are need to subdue its strength since its remains a significant source of food borne infection worldwide. The aims of these work are to investigate the antimicrobial susceptibility of Salmonella when exposed to natural organic substances, specifically carica papaya (pawpaw) leaf extract, and to bring to the understanding of the medicinal and vital importance of pawpaw leaf. Household cockroaches, known as carrier of salmonella, were used as the as source of bacterial isolation. To do this, isolation of Salmonella were obtained from the bodies of thirty household cockroaches samples by immersion in peptone water, followed by a serial dilution was performed in order to reduce the microbial load, which is aseptically cultured in a sterile disposable petri dish containing Xylose lysine deoxycholate agar to selectively grow Salmonella colonies. The distilled water and ethanol were used as solvent in producing the carica papaya leaf extract in varying concentration to perform an antimicrobial susceptibility tests. In conjunction, Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were conducted using the agar well diffusion method to evaluate the inhibitory effects of the extracts on the Salmonella isolates. The results indicated that pawpaw leaf extracts possess bioactive compound capable of inhibiting Salmonella growth, with ethanol extracts showing higher antimicrobial activity compared to aqueous extracts. However, limitations of this research were explored, and we considered ways to improve its accuracy. This research has implications for food safety, human well-being, and the development of natural antimicrobial agents and future studies should focus on optimizing extraction method and identifying specific active compounds to enhance its efficacy.