Assessment of Bacteriological Quality of Street Vended Fast Foods and Their Antimicrobial Resistance

The present study was conducted to determine the total bacterial load with special emphasis on Staphylococcus spp., Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli in street vended fast foods sold in Bangladesh Agricultural University campus, Mymensingh and to evaluate the antibiotic resistance of isolates. A total of 72 samples from six street vended fast food items included Shingara, Samosa, Piazu, Puri, Potato chop and Beguni were collected. Bacterial enumeration and antimicrobial susceptibility test were made using the following standard microbiological methods. The mean total bacterial count, Staphylococcus spp., Salmonella spp. and E. coli count in all the fast food samples ranged from 1.0 x 107 to 2.4 x 107, 6.3 x 103 to 4.2 x 104, 2.4 x 103 to 3.2 x 104 and 2.7 x 104 to 4.0 x 104 cfu/g respectively. Among the 60 isolates, Staphylococcus spp. was most detected isolate (40%) followed by E. coli (33.3%) and Salmonella spp. (26.7%). All the isolates were tested to antibiotic susceptibility against ten commonly used antibiotics and the results showed most of the bacterial isolates were resistant to ampicillin, amoxicillin, nalidixic acid, tetracycline and erythromycin whereas many of the isolates of these organisms were sensitive to ciprofloxacin, gentamycin, azithromycin and chloramphenical. Thus the study revealed that street vended fast food in this area is contaminated with foodborne bacteria that can pose a serious health problem.