Microbial Quality and Antibiotic Sensitivity Pattern of Isolated Microorganisms from Street Foods Sold in Akure Metropolis, Nigeria

The frequent incidence of food borne diseases had been attributed to the unhygienic status of street foods. Therefore, microbial quality and sensitivity pattern of isolated microorganisms from some street foods sold in Akure metropolis were examined. Some indicator parameters were also adopted to measure the sanitary qualities of the vendors’ premises. The microbial load, occurrence of microorganisms and percentage of antibiotic resistance were determined using standard microbiological methods. The bacterial and fungal count obtained from examining street foods ranged from (1.1 × 102 - 1.08 × 106) CFU g-1 and (1.0 × 102 - 8.34 × 104) SFU g-1, respectively. Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Shigella dysenteriae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, Enterobacter aerogenes, Streptococcus lactis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus spp, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Aspergillus spp, Penicillium spp, Rhizopus stolonifer, Mucor mucedo and Candida albicans were isolated microorganisms from the street foods. The isolates show a varying degree of resistance to commonly used antibiotics. The percentage resistance shown by these isolates to the antibiotics ranged from 13.3% to 100 %. The microbiological status of the examined food samples suggested that there is the need to monitor the safety of these ready to eat foods sold on the streets. Hence, bodies saddled with the monitoring of such foods should establish effective measures to ascertain the safety of these foods for unsuspecting consumers.