Godana Arero* and Aschalew Abebe
Background: In developing countries food borne infection leads to death of many children and the resulting diarrheal disease can have a long term effect on children’s growth as well as on their physical and cognitive development. Meanwhile, food contamination from raw meat is an important cause of food borne disease outbreaks or food poisoning due to improper food handling.
Objective: The study aimed to assess bacteriological quality, antibiotic susceptibility pattern of bacterial isolation of raw meat, and associated factors among butcher houses of Adama town, Ethiopia, 2020.
Method: A cross sectional study design was conducted among 112 butcher shops in Adama town from October 1 to December 30, 2019. A simple random sampling method was used. Hereafter, 100 grams of raw meat was collected and transported to a referral laboratory center within 2 hr in an icebox for bacteriological analysis. Nutrient agar, Macckoncey agar and Mannitol salt agar were used to enumerate total aerobic plate count, Total coliform/fecal count and total Staphylococcus aureas count respectively with all media were from hardy diagnostic, America. The Kirby Bauer disk diffusion method was used to check susceptibility patterns of the potential pathogenic bacterial isolates. Data was entered into Epi-Info version 7.2 and analyzed usin g SPSSS oftware version 21.
Result: Three-fourth (¾th) of collected raw meat was an unacceptable bacterial load of total aerobic plate count based on gulf standard. The average contamination was (5.89 ± 0.86) log colony forming unit per gram for total aerobic plate count. Raw meat collected from meat handlers who trained on meat hygiene (Adjusted odd ratio=5.8,95% CI:1.99-17.34) and collecting money (Adjusted odd ratio 0.14,95% CI:0.04-0.43) were associated with the bacteriological quality of raw meat. Whereas, the proportion of meat samples that were positive for Salmonella and Shigella were (9.8% and 2.67%) respectively. The resistance of Salmonella was most frequently observed to Ampicillin (100%), Amoxicillin/Clavunilic (54.5%), Tetracycline (36.3%) Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (18.2%). Shigella expressed resistance to Ampicillin (50%) and 100% sensitivity to the rest antibiotics used.
Conclusion and recommendations: The bacterial logarithmic mean values from the samples tested were beyond the acceptable standard and an indication of poor hygiene, making it a potential source of food borne infection. Therefore, stringent inspection, regular supervision, training, and hygienic practices should be introduced in order to enhance the overall hygienic quality of meat to safeguard consumers.