Objective To assess the toxic potential of Dissotis rotundifolia (D. rotundifolia) whole plant extract in Spraque–Dawley rats within a 2-week period of administration. Methods Methanolic extract of D. rotundifolia was administered orally once daily at dose levels of 0, 100, 300 and 1 000 mg/kg body weight for 14 days. Toxicity was assessed using mortality, clinical signs, body and organ weights, hematological indices, serum chemistry parameters and histopathological analyses. Results There were no treatment-related mortalities or differences in clinical signs, hematology and serum biochemistry. This was confirmed by micrographs obtained from histopathological analysis. Conclusions The results obtained from the sub-acute toxicological assessment of D. rotundifolia extract suggest that the extract is non-toxic at doses up to 1 000 mg/kg/day administered for a period of 14 days.

We performed drug susceptibility testing on first- and second-line drugs in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) for the first time in Ghana to obtain preliminary data on drug-resistant tuberculosis. Of 21 isolates (4 new cases and 17 treated cases), 5 (23.8%) were multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and 19 (90.5%) were resistant to at least one drug, but no extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) was identified. Since the target patients were Category II, IV or smear positive at follow-up microscopy, it is understandable that there were many drug-resistant TB cases. Six isolates were resistant to one or two second-line drugs, but the second-line drugs were not approved in Ghana. It is considered that the bacilli were imported from abroad. Preventing the import of drug-resistant TB bacilli is probably one of best ways to control TB in Ghana.