Assessment of Airborne Bacteria in Selected Eateries in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

Major health hazards are caused by microorganisms, and this is because of their presence everywhere. The eatery environment is of great concern, considering the exposure of food surfaces and food products to the unhygienic practices of the staff and the consumers. The essence of this work was to assess microbial air quality in 15 randomly selected eateries within Port Harcourt metropolis in Rivers State, Nigeria. Sedimentation technique was used for microbial air quality sampling, using freshly prepared MacConkey agar, Chocolate agar, and Blood agar, which were placed one meter above the eatery floor for an hour, exposed to open air. The agar plates were closed and taken to the laboratory, where they were incubated for 24 hours at 37℃ for the growth of bacteria. The isolates were characterised and identified using standard microbiological techniques such as Gram staining, catalase test, coagulase test, indole test, urease test, and motility test. From the results, the total heterotrophic bacteria count from the 15 randomly selected eateries located in Mile 1, Mile 3, and Mile 4 axis of Port Harcourt are 235, 360, and 263, respectively. The P-value 0.199 shows there is no significant difference between location and airborne bacteria presence. The bacterial isolates with their percentage prevalence from the 15 eateries were Staphylococcus aureus 5(100), Micrococcus species 8(100), Staphylococcus species 12(100), Escherichia coli 2(100), and Bacillus species 8(100), with P-values of 0.002, 0.223, 0.199, 0.0015, and 0.223 respectively, all of which are not statistically significant except Staphylococcus aureus with P-value of 0.002, and Escherichia coli with P-value of 0.0015 which their percentage prevalence are statistically significant. In conclusion, this study depicts that pathogenic bacteria were released into the air due to different human activities, such as sneezing or coughing and through the use of poorly maintained mechanical devices in the eatery environment. These organisms have the ability to cause both minor and major infectious diseases, especially in the elderly and immunocompromised individuals. There is a call to maintain a healthy staff and customer environment, hence necessitating proper management of the environmental factors that promote microorganism growth and multiplication.