Isolation and Identification of Microorganisms from Street Vended Ready-to-Eat Foods in Gombe Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

The consumption of ready-to-eat foods vended in streets have raised public health concern in terms of food safety implying their microbiological quality status could be questionable; consequently, this study therefore aimed at investigating consortium of microbes present in ready-to-eat foods vended in five streets of Gombe metropolis. Traditional culture method was adopted for the isolation of microorganisms via pour plating method, then identification by colonial morphology, Gram staining and microscopy, and further biochemical analysis for confirmation of microbes. Findings revealed the presence of sixteen diverse microorganisms of bacteria and fungi lineage with varied percentage of occurrences. Microorganisms isolated ranges from spoilage group (P. aeruginosa (11.5%), Rhizopus spp (4%)), Coliform (E. coli (34.5%), K. pneumoniae (16.1%)), pathogenic (S. typhi (15%), Shigella spp (2.30%), S. aureus (12.6%), P. aeruginosa (11.5%), Aspergillus niger (26%), Aspergillus flavus (18%), Fusarium oxysporum (4%)) and opportunistic pathogens (Aspergillus fumigates (14%), Penicillium spp. (4%)) – where the pathogenic microbes are known to cause food-borne diseases and fungal poisoning. Accordingly, the presence of these pathogenic microbes suggests significant public health hazards. Therefore, stringent enforcement of standard and food safety measures is advised to curtail future outbreak of food-borne diseases.