A bacteriological profile of salad vegetables in Bangladesh with special reference to coliforms

Salad vegetables are often consumed fresh and thus can act as effective media for the transmission of associated pathogens. Fresh samples of cucumber, carrot and lettuce were collected from different markets in Dhaka metropolitan city, Bangladesh. Bacterial loads were found to be 7·1 times 104 to 6·34 times 108 colony forming unit (cfu)/100 g. Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and Serratia were amongst the coliforms (lactose fermenters) while Pseudomonas, Shigella and Acinetobacter were non-lactose fermenters associated with the samples.