Hygiene Practice, Microbial Diversity and Detection of Pathogenic Bacteria in some Ready-To-Eat Foods of Rajshahi Metropolis

Abstract

RTE food has become an important public health issue and a great concern to everybody. This is due to widespread food borne diseases, due to the mushrooming of wayside food vendors who lack an adequate understanding of the basic food safety issues. In the present study different restaurants and street food vans of six hot spots of Rajshahi Metropolis were surveyed during March, 2015 to February, 2016. The survey was mainly conducted to ascertain the socioeconomic condition, hygiene and sanitation practice of food seller to reduce the contamination rate and to p1ð€€žotect public health. From the survey result it was observed that all RTE food vendors of Rajshahi Metropolis were male with the age range as below 25-50 years, illiterate to under H.S.C pass and have 5-20 years of experience in this profession. The majority of restaurants vendors earned 26000 to 30000 taka monthly. The most of the restaurant vendors had no knowledge about food hygiene and very much irregular for cleaning of sale surfaces (23.07%). Hand washing before and after serving was practiced by 23.07% vendors, 30.77 % used aprons and none of vendors covered hair with caps or used gloves while serving food. They used detergent for cleaning of utensils. None of the vendors have any training about food safety and not aware of food safety law. On the other hand, in case of street food vendors, it was observed that majority (100%) of street vendors were male. Most of the vendors (60%) were 36-45 years old and 64% were passed JSC and only 8% street vendors were illiterate. The majority (52%) of street vendors earned 11000 to 15000 taka monthly and majority (80%) had no knowledge about food hygiene. None of the street vendors used apron, gloves while selling food and did not covered food with polythene. ---