Microbiological Quality of Street-Vended, Expired and Cafeteria Food Items Collected from Different Places in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Abstract

Food-borne illnesses generally cause disorders of the digestive tract; however, they can also lead to more serious consequences. Food-borne illness is the result of having contaminated, expired, or toxic food items. In developing countries food sold by street vendors is the major source of food-borne illness. Food in the student cafeteria can cause food-borne illness if they are contaminated. As a result safety and well-being of the students are affected. Harmful bacteria grow in the expired food items which lead to food-borne disease. The objective of this study was to isolate and identify the presence of enteric bacteria (Escherichia coli, Shigella, Salmonella and Vibrio species) in different expired foods, cafeteria foods and street foods. Among thirty five food items 8, 4 and 23 were street foods, expired foods and foods from cafeteria respectively. The street vended foods, expired foods and cafeteria foods were collected from different areas in Dhaka city. The tested food samples were Hotdog, Shingara, Mayonnaise, Bhel-puri, Beguni, Bun, Cake, Danish, Chola, Chips, Laddu, Pattice etc. Sterile polythene bags were used to collect 3 different samples. They were tested for the presence of microorganisms following conventional microbiological processes. Biochemical tests were done for the confirmation of Escherichia coli, Shigella, Salmonella and Vibrio species. Out of thirty five food samples 7 (20%) food samples were suspected to be contaminated with E. coli, 2 (5%) food samples were suspected to be contaminated with Shigella spp., 10 (28%) food samples were suspected to be contaminated with Vibrio spp. All these enteric pathogens could be the potential cause for food-borne illnesses. Further study is needed to find out the contamination of different types of food items with large sample size.