a b s t r a c tThis study evaluates the knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) of food handlers working in restaurants in Kuala Pilah, Malaysia. Data were collected in 2010 involving 64 food handlers. The results show that the food handlers have excellent knowledge and attitude, and good practices toward food hygiene with mean score (SD) of 83.98 (13.26), 82.8 (10.94) and 77.04 (14.98), respectively. There is significant correlation between educational level and attitude (p ¼ .008), knowledge and attitude (p .001), knowledge and practice (p ¼ .007) and attitude and practice (p ¼ .041). Even though the result shows satisfactory KAP levels of the food handlers, some aspects on hygiene measures like refreezing food item, clean working area and wearing of jewelry and watch need to be emphasized.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a foodborne pathogen that is frequently isolated from a variety of seafood. To control this pathogenic Vibrio spp., the implementation of bacteriophages in aquaculture and food industries have shown a promising alternative to antibiotics. In this study, six bacteriophages isolated from the seafood samples demonstrated a narrow host range specificity that infecting only the V. parahaemolyticus strains. Morphological analysis revealed that bacteriophages Vp33, Vp22, Vp21, and Vp02 belong to the Podoviridae family, while bacteriophages Vp08 and Vp11 were categorized into the Siphoviridae family. All bacteriophages were composed of DNA genome and showed distinctive restriction fragment length polymorphism. The optimal MOI for bacteriophage propagation was determined to be 0.001 to 1. One-step growth curve revealed that the latent period ranged from 10 to 20 min, and the burst size of bacteriophage was approximately 17 to 51 PFU/cell. The influence of temperature and pH levels on the stability of bacteriophages showed that all bacteriophages were optimally stable over a wide range of temperatures and pH levels. In vitro lytic activity of all bacteriophages demonstrated to have a significant effect against V. parahaemolyticus. Besides, the application of a bacteriophage cocktail instead of a single bacteriophage suspension was observed to have a better efficiency to control the growth of V. parahaemolyticus. Results from this study provided a basic understanding of the physiological and biological properties of the isolated bacteriophages before it can be readily used as a biocontrol agent against the growth of V. parahaemolyticus.

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