Materials and Methods: The sensitivity or resistance of standard strains of 9 important species of transmissible pathogenic bacteria, through food in laboratory Mueller Hinton agar medium and using blank paper discs containing onion extract, 9 standard synthetic chemicals, and antibiotics by agar disk diffusion method (disk diffusion agar), were investigated.

Results: The findings of this study showed that, of the 9 species of bacteria tested, the aqueous extract of onion only has relatively small antibacterial activity on the 2 species of Staphylococcus aureus and clostridium perfringens. Statistical analysis of the results also indicated that there was no significant relationship among the different antibiotics used and the edible onion aqueous extract, and the resistance or susceptibility of isolates. Moreover, there was a difference between different antibiotics tested in this study and aqueous extract of onion, regarding the number of resistant bacteria, and intermediate and moderate susceptibility, and susceptibility to the antibacterial compounds.

Conclusion: It seems that the aqueous extract of onions cannot be used as an alternative to commonly used antibiotics to fight important bacteria in terms food hygiene.