Detection of enteric bacteria in the popular street food chotpoti in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Contaminated street food has been linked to food-borne illness and food-borne outbreak. Chotpoti is a popular street food in Bangladesh. This study was conducted to identify enteric bacteria in chotpoti sold in different parts of the capital city Dhaka. From July to October, 2012 we purposively selected 18 sites where chotpoti was sold in Dhaka city. From each site we randomly selected six chotpoti stalls for sample collection. At each stall we aseptically collected approximately 100 gm of a combined sample of chotpoti, chili sauce and water used for cleaning utensils. The combined sample was homogenized and was serially diluted in a sterile test tube with normal saline to obtain a dilution up to 10 -5 . From each test tube 0.1 ml of dilution was plated on to MacConkey and Blood agar plates under aerobic conditions at 37˚C for 24 to 48 hours. Bacterial growth was identified by the colonial morphology, Gram stain, and biochemical tests. Of the 108 samples we analyzed, 84 (78%) were contaminated with bacterial pathogens. Among isolated organisms Acinetobacter (66%) was the most dominant followed by Klebsiella spp. (54%), E. coli (3%) and Proteus spp. (0.9%). Two different organisms were present in 47 (44%) samples. In half of the study sites, every sample was contaminated; in only one site bacterial contamination was absent in all samples. Contaminated street food like chotpoti may cause food borne illness and pose risk of food borne epidemics. Further studies are required for quantitative assessment of pathogens to detect potential sources of contamination and to develop interventions that can effectively reduce street food contamination.

Microbiological safety of ready‐to‐eat foods in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A comprehensive 10‐year (2009 to 2018) review

“…In addition, Biswas, Parvez, Shafiquzzaman, Nahar, and Rahman (2010) and Yannick, Rawlings, & Emmanuela (2013) reported the presence of E. coli in RTE meat from Bangladesh (Asia) and Cameroon (Central Africa), respectively, whereas diarrheagenic E. coli strains were recovered from grilled chicken in Burkina Faso (West Africa) (Somda et al, 2018). Similarly, Pseudomonas was detected in street-vended juice in Pakistan, (Batool, Tahir, Rauf, & Kalsoom, 2013), whereas in Bangladesh (Asia) and Ethiopia, Klebsiella was found to contaminate chotpoti and ambasha, respectively (Eromo, Tassew, Daka, & Kibru, 2016;Hassan et al, 2016).…”

Phylotyping, Pathotyping and Phenotypic Characteristics of Escherichia coli Isolated from Various Street Foods in Bangladesh

“…In this research, E. coli was isolated at a rate of 8%. In a previous study (Hassan et al, 2016) a lower incidence of 3% (n=84) E. coli strains were found in the street food chotpoti (3%, n=84). Kharel et al (2016) found E. coli in a variety of street food samples, including pakodas, and samosas.…”

“…Inadequate food safety knowledge and proper personal hygiene practices along with lack of public awareness are responsible for increasing foodborne disease burden in developing countries (Birgen et al, 2020). Contaminated street food has been related to foodborne illness and foodborne outbreaks equally (Hassan et al, 2016). Therefore, foodborne infections have become a rising public health concern and an alarming issue worldwide, which cause up to 2 million deaths in unindustrialized countries each year (Rahman et al, 2017).…”

Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistant Gram Negative Bacteria in the Street Vended Foods of Bangladesh: An Overview

“…Due to inexpensiveness, unique flavor, variation and other conveniences the demand for street vended foods is increasing among urban people [1]. There are about 200,000 street food vendors in Dhaka city alone and the number is growing due to rapid urbanization [2,3]. Most vendors set up their stalls near bus terminals, busy roads, in front of schools, markets and railway stations in hopes of high potential customers.…”

“…Most vendors set up their stalls near bus terminals, busy roads, in front of schools, markets and railway stations in hopes of high potential customers. Vending carts are also placed by the side of municipal drains and sewage which attract insects and flies [2]. All these places have limited access to basic sanitary facilities such as running water, garbage disposal and clean toilets which puts the cleanliness of food preparing places and personal hygiene of vendors in question [4].…”