Bacteriological Quality Assessment of Selected Street Foods and Their Public Health Importance in Gondar Town, North West Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract: Safety of food is a basic requirement of food quality. The street food industry has an important role in the cities and towns of many developing countries in meeting the food demands of the urban dwellers. It feeds millions of people daily with a wide variety of foods that are relatively cheap and easily accessible. However, concerns have been raised about the safety and quality of street vended foods. This study was done to assess the bacteriological quality and associated factors of street vended foods and their public health implications. A facility based cross-sectional study was used to undertake the study from March to May, 2016 in Gondar, Ethiopia. Thirty street foods samples (10 ‘Bonbolino’, 10 ‘bread’ and 10 ‘donate’) were aseptically collected from four locations (Arada, Stadium, Hospital and Collage) of Gondar. Interview and observational assessments were also used to collect socio-demographic data and possible risk factors from street food vendors. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Ethical clearance was secured before data collection. Analysis of the food samples revealed that 65.5% of the food samples were contaminated with one or more bacteria. The isolated bacteria were total coliforms 11227 cfu/gm (26.43%), S. aureus15096 cfu/gm (35.54%) and 16155 cfu/gm (38.03%) Salmonella species. Among 40 study participants 38(95%) were females and 4(10%) were illiterates. In this study only 16 (40%) of the venders knew about street food contamination while more than half 22(53.7%) of the study participants have had poor attitude towards food contamination. As a results, street foods in the study area were contaminated with one or more bacteria’s. Poor personal hygiene, improper handling and storage practice of foods and poor knowledge of food vendors towards food borne diseases were the associated factors to contamination of street vended foods in Gondar town. Therefore, concerned bodies should give health education to street food vendors to improve their hygienic conditions during the preparation, handling, storing and serving of foods