PREVALANCE OF PARASITIC AND ENTERIC INFECTION AMONG ASYMPTOMATIC FOOD HANDLERS OF DIFFERENT HOSPITAL CANTEENS OF CHATTOGRAM CITY

Abstract

Gastrointestinal parasitic infection is one of the important public health problems in the world which causes significant mortality and morbidity. These infections are mostly due to food-borne diseases, which are a cause for concern in both industrialized and underdeveloped nations. Helminth and protozoan infections play major roles in the occurrence of the digestive disorders. These infection may spread rapidly from food prepared and processed by food handlers. On this regard descriptive type of cross sectional study was conducted among 125 food handlers of different hospital canteens in Chattogram city. The study was conducted from June 2022 to April 2023. A semi structured and pretested questionnaire used to obtain information on socio demographic characteristics of foodhandler, personal hygiene, food hygiene, condition of canteen, and health condition of foodhandler. The samples were collected in appropriate method and was transported in the same day to the laboratory in a cold box. Analysis had done by using Microsoft Excel and the SPSS version 26 with 95% confidence interval and 5% level of significance. Scoring was performed for personal hygiene related questions and based on the total score personal hygiene was categorized into three ranks- very good, good and poor. Result showed zero prevalence of parasite and enteric infection that indicate asymptomatic food handlers had good health and good hygiene practice. It was also seen that food handler never had food borne illness due to good hygiene practice. Among the food handlers their experience and daily duty hours showed significance relation with the good hygiene practice. Awareness for Covid-19 plays an important role for improvement of hygiene practice. The zero prevalence of intestinal parasites and nil Salmonella, Shigella and Vibrio species in our food handlersindicated good canteens condition and occupation policies. On analyzing variables to identify good hygiene practice among food handler, there was no association with sociodemographic status except gender, as the male were predominant worker become significant (p <0.001). Work experience and eating leftover food showed significance. The hygiene status showed no significant association with the health condition of the food handler like intake of Anthelminthic, sickness in last 1 year, having antibiotic, idea about typhoid fever. The most of the respondents had good (60.8%) personal hygiene whereas, 39.2% had very good personal hygiene. Using this study as a baseline, further evaluation on the prevalence can be done including other hospitals and restaurants of