Transmission of Foodborne Illnesses: The Role of Serving Utensil - Dependent Transmission of Enteric Pathogens from Street - Food Vending Outlets at the University of Cape Coast Community in Ghana

Abstract

Foodborne illnesses pose serious public health threat globally, but requisite data to inform proper planning and prioritizing food safety interventions especially in developing countries is lacking. This study investigated microbiological quality of serving utensils (serving plates or bowls) for enteric pathogens from food vending and serving outlets within the University of Cape Coast campus and surrounding villages in the Central Region of Ghana. A total of 120 swab samples were collected from serving utensils after they were cleansed by food servers at the food vending outlets. Each swab sample was inoculated in an equal volume of bacteriological peptone water and incubated at 37˚C for 24 hours. Serial dilutions and aerobic colony counting was performed by spread plating on plate count agar (PCA) for each sample. Isolated bacteria colonies from the PCA plates were sub- cultured on blood and MacConkey agars. Subsequently, bacteria species were identified by standard biochemical methods and modified Kirby - Bauer disc diffusion technique was used to investigate antibiotic susceptibility patterns of each bacteria species. All the swab samples produced bacteria counts > 105 CFU/ml at mean count of 1.066 × 1010 CFU/ml. Nine (Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphy- lococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumonae, Enterobacter spp, coagulase-negative Staphylococci, Proteus mirabilis, and Micrococcus spp) bacteria species were isolated with Bacillus cereus (21.59%) being the predominant bacteria and Proteus mirabilis and Micrococcus spp (0.85 %) being the least. The Gram - positive bacteria species were susceptible to gentamycin but resistant to ampicillin, while the Gram - negative bacteria species were susceptible to cotrimoxazole and amikacin but resistant to ciprofloxacin and tetracycline. The serving utensils at the vending outlets were highly contaminated with enterotoxigenic bacteria and this poses a serious risk to food consumers within the study area. Importantly, this finding provides a rationale for public health authorities to increase educa- tion of food vendors as well as strictly enforcing sanitation codes