Background: Food vendors play a critical food safety role in the "farm to plate" continuum that is necessary for the prevention and control of food borne diseases and therefore, any lack of its understanding by the food vendors poses a serious challenge to food safety. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and hygienic practices of food vendors in Owerri town of Imo State, Nigeria. Methods: The study was a Cross-Sectional descriptive design that used a proportionate convenience sampling technique to select 200 food vendors from the three Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Owerri town. Data were collected using a pretested semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire. Descriptive analyses were done with frequencies and summary statistics. Chi square statistics were computed to determine significant relationships and p value was set at 0.05 significant level. Results: While a majority of the respondents had a good level of knowledge (81%) and positive attitude (71%) about food hygiene, only 37% of the respondents had a good level of hygienic practice. It was revealed that 32% and 46% of the respondents received training on food hygiene and environmental health worker inspection respectively. It was also revealed that, there were statistically significant relationships between knowledge (p = 0.001), attitude (p = 0.000), formal training on food hygiene (p = 0.000) and the level of food hygienic practices. Conclusion: The public health management of food vending services should involve the development of strategies that will equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide vending services in a hygienic and safe manner.How to cite this paper: Iwu, A.C.,

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is the commonest hospital acquired infection in surgical patients globally. It has remained a major cause of morbidity and mortality and a major source of worry to both the patients, doctors, hospitals and the community as a whole. Aim: To determine the role of premorbid status, wound class and cadre of surgeons on the prevalence rate of surgical site infections. Materials and methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 200 randomly recruited surgical patients between April and June 2012 at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi. Pre-tested, interviewer administered questionnaires and laboratory test results were used to collect data, which were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences, version 16. Results: The prevalence of surgical site infection was 15.5% (or 31 of 200) among the participants. Premorbid status, as well as, wound class, of the patients affected the rate of SSI (p=0.007) and (p=0.009), respectively. However, the wound location did not show any significant effect on the prevalence of SSI. Conclusion:The study found a high prevalence of SSI which was dependent on the class of wound, and premorbid status of the patient.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract