Assessment of hand washing facilities, personal hygiene and the bacteriological quality of hand washes in some grocery and dairy shops in alexandria, egypt.

UNLABELLED: Food produced with satisfactory hygienic standards is one of the essential conditions for promoting and preserving health. A total of 15 grocery and dairy shops were randomly selected from Alexandria, Egypt to assess their hand washing facilities and personal hygiene of food handlers using a pre-designed sanitation checklist. Also the bacteriological profile of the handlers' hand washes was determined. Only 20% of these shops were acceptable concerning their hand washing facilities ((3) 50% score percentages). Observing 29 food handlers revealed that only 3.4% of them were acceptable in their personal hygiene with a mean score percentage of only 31.0 +/- 9.2. Although the hand washing method followed by the food handlers significantly decreased both aerobic mesophilic and staphylococci counts, they were still high. Moreover, fecal coliforms increased insignificantly from 5 to 7 MPN/100ml indicating that the hand washing was improperly done due several pitfalls. Most of the handlers who washed their hands for less than 10 seconds (41.4%) had higher counts of aerobic mesophiles and staphylococci than those who washed for more 10 seconds. Most of the handlers (93.1%) did not avoid contamination from the tap after hand washing. Moreover, their hand washes were contaminated with fecal coliforms (8 MPN/100ml) and with slightly higher staphylococci counts than those who avoid contamination either by rinsing a tap or closing it by elbow. RECOMMENDATIONS: Much effort should be done from the responsible authority to improve the sanitation inside these shops and food handlers should be given in-service training to know how to efficiently wash their hands.

Assessment of the quality of water from some public coolers in alexandria, egypt.

Drinking water from bottle-less coolers may pose some public health risks to consumers due to either chemical or microbiological contamination. This study was carried out aiming at assessing the quality of water dispensed from some public coolers in order to determine its compliance with the drinking water standards (Egyptian, EPA) and with the WHO guidelines. Twenty water coolers were selected randomly from different districts. Water samples were collected thrice from these coolers and once from the mains supplying the coolers. Results of analysis of these samples revealed that 85% of water coolers were containing <0.5 mg/l free residual chlorine, 65% were containing lead higher than 0.01mg/l, and 55% were containing magnesium hardness higher than 150 mg/l. As for the biological contamination, 15% of the coolers were contaminated with Cryptosporidium parvum, 15% were containing total coliform group of bacteria, 5 % gave positive thermotolerent coliform test and 5% gave positive Streptococcus fecalis test. The study concluded that such contamination might be from failure to thoroughly clean the coolers on a regular basis. Consequently, the study recommends proper installation of the cooler, a maintenance agreement with the cooler supplier, testing cooler water at regular intervals by the Ministry of Health representatives, and -if possible- replacing these types of coolers with those with a water purification system.