Microbiological Safety of Powdered Infant Formula for Infants below Six Months of Age in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2020-12
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: In terms of food safety infants are considered to be one of the highest risk groupsbecause their resistantancy system is not wholly developed. Powdered infant formula issued ininstances when breastfeeding is not possible or inadequate as a substitute but it is not acompletely microbial free product and is sometimes a vehicle for certain pathogens likeCronobacter species and others.
Objective: the purpose of this work was to determine or evaluate the microbial quality of infantpowdered formula milk for Infants which are lower than six months of age.
Methods: A cross sectional study was done on 106 Infant Powdered formula milk samplescollected from Addis Ababa city between March and June 2020 to assess the microbial qualityusing mesophilic aerobic colony count, Enterobacteriaceae, coliforms, and pathogens Salmonellaand Cronobacter species using standard ISO methods at EPHI and SPSS version 20 was used foranalysis and mostly descriptive statistics were employed.
Results: Mesophilic aerobic counts were detected in 9.4% (n=20) of the samples.Enterobacteriaceae and total coliforms were detected in 9.4% (n=10) and 7.5% (n=8).Cronobacter species were also detected with a prevalence rate of 5.6% (n=6/106) and noSalmonella species was detected in this study.
Conclusion: This study shows that quality parameters and the incidence of the Cronobacterspecies were 5.6% (6/106). These findings are all out of the recommended internationalspecifications by Codex of Alimentarius Commission.
Recommendation: The result of this study contributes to the knowledge used in monitoring thehealth problem of infants that come from PIF milk contamination. It will raise the producers andhealth regulatory body of Ethiopia since the consequence of these products could pose very greatpublic damage as it is imported and consumed in mass to the infants in Ethiopia.
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Powdered Infant Formula, Cronobacter species, Salmonella species, Mesophilic Aerobic Colony Count, Enterobacteriaceae.