Research status and thoughts on sterilization of Chinese herbal medicine pieces / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Decoction pieces of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) was processed by Chinese medicinal materials, and generally the sources of medicinal materials were from animals, botanical, mineral drugs, etc., with itself microorganisms which could be introduced in the production process too. The microbial growth and reproduction in pieces will affect the quality of the pieces, even some of the harmful microorganisms affect the health and safety of patients through the oral administration. Therefore, it is important to sterilize the pieces under the controlled microbial limits. This article summarizes the microbial control of CHM research status and commonly sterilization methods in the production process, considers and discusses the problems on sterilization issues of CHM, and puts forward the suggestion on the thoughts of a special focus on "prototype pieces" sterilization, the establishment of its microbial limit, which could improve the quality standard of CHM so as to ensure the safely and effecacy of CHM pieces.