Evaluation of Workers' Knowledge, attitudes, and Hygiene practices regarding food safety and the microbial load on meat and its contact surfaces in abattoirs and butcher shops in selected towns of the East Shoa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia
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Date
2024
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
A primary global goal shared by both the public and private sectors is to ensure the food safety of the meat supply chain to protect public health. Processing meat products in an unsanitary way and selling contaminated meat may harm public health. This study is aimed at the evaluation of workers’ knowledge, attitudes, and hygiene practices regarding food safety and the microbial load on meat and its contact surfaces in abattoirs and butcher shops in selected towns of the East Shoa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional survey and sampling were conducted from November 2023 to March 2024. A total of 110 meat handlers from which 52 from slaughterhouses and 58 from butcher shops by using systematic simple random sampling methods were selected. Data was
gathered via structured interviews, and 48 swab samples were randomly selected for bacterial detection. These samples aimed to demonstrate the hygienic conditions at both a slaughterhouse and a butcher shop. The statistical analysis of the data was done by STATA software version 14 for statistical analysis, with descriptive statistics and Pearson's chi-square test for evaluating sociodemographic factors' association with food safety knowledge, attitude, and practices of food handlers in slaughterhouses and butcher shops. Of the 52 slaughterhouse worker meat handlers, 75.0% had good score-level knowledge. The score level of knowledge of slaughterhouse workers was also significantly associated with socio-demographic factors of age group (ꭓ2 , 13.982; P value = 0.003), level of education (ꭓ2 , 12.515; P value = 0.002), and experiences (ꭓ2 , 7.704; P value = 0.021). The good attitude score levels of the slaughterhouse respondents were also assessed and found to be 61.5%. The study found the highest aerobic plate count (APC) in butcher shops hand and meat swabs from laughterhouses in Modjo town, with E. coli and S. aureus colonies on cutting boards. The findings emphasize the importance of knowledge and attitude in influencing food safety practices, emphasizing the need for strict protocols and training
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Attitude, food safety, knowledge, meat, hygienic practice, East Shoa zone