MICROBIOLOGICAL HAZARD ANALYSIS OF FOOD FISHES COLLECTED FROM LOCAL FISH MARKETS AT DIFFERENT TIME INTERVALS: A CASE STUDY

摘要

The hygienic and quality standards are very poor at these places and pose severe thereat with the contamination of food borne diseases. The present study is aimed to evaluate the contamination microbial hazards before it is reached to consumer. The selected sampling stations in Vijayawada city,one of the important commerial city of Andhra Pradesh state, India where the sites in situated on the banks river Krishna and the fish trading and fish consumers are more compared to the rest of the state. A total of 36 fish samples comprising of 12 fishes from each variety of Catla, Rohu, and Mrigala were selected for the present study as these are the mostly preferred fishes for consumption. These fishes were collected from local fish markets of Vijayawada city during different time intervals at 3AM, 4AM, 5AM, and 6AM. The collected fishes were categorized as per their time of catch and analyzed for contamination of Total Aerobic Plate Count, E. coli, and Salmonella aureus. The results showed that the contamination was very low at the riverside as TPC was 9.38 (cfu/mg106), E.coli was 8.24 (cfu/mg106) and S.aureus was 3.8 (cfu/mg106).The contamination level increased with the increase of time and handling. A high level of contamination was observed at fishes collected from fish retailers (at the last step) as the TPC was 58.62 (cfu/mg106), E.coli 39.42 (cfu/mg106), and S.aureus 22.93 (cfu/mg106). The present study conclude that prevalence of food contamination with pathogenic bacteria is more at fish landing centers of Vijayawada, where fish retailers sell their fishes. It is high time to improve the food safety standards on par with the export fish commodities at fish landing centers as well as local fish markets by adopting HACCP principles.