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ABSTRACT
Fruits are dietary sources of nutrients, vitamins and fibre for humans, hence are important for health and well-being of individuals. The ready-to-eat fruits are fruits that have been cut open and carried around by street vendors or hawkers at local markets and such fruits are eaten immediately without necessarily having to cut, peel or rinse them before consumption because they have already been prepared or packaged by the vendors. Therefore, it is necessary to further evaluate and explore the bacterial qualities of some of these vended fruits in order to determine the risk associated with their consumption so as to reduce the possibility of outbreak of diseases, severe health crises and death. To this end, this study seeks to determine the bacteria evaluation of some ready-to-eat vended fruits sold in Ugbowo community, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. A total of one hundred and five (105) ready-to-eat fruit samples (3 each) consisting of pawpaw (Carica papaya), oranges (Citrus sinensis), apple (Malus domestica), water melon (Citrullus lanatus Thumb.), and pineapple (Ananas comosus) was collected and put into different zip-lock bags and labelled appropriately to differentiate them based on the vendors or markets they were bought from. They were then taken to the laboratory for bacteriological investigation. The p-value gotten from the bacterial counts was significant (P = 0.0082). The mean bacterial load of the samples showed that pineapple had the highest value of 3.2 x 105 CFU/ML while watermelon and pawpaw had a value of 3.1 x 105 CFU/ML each and apple gave a value of 3.0 x 105 CFU/ML while the least mean bacterial load was oranges with 2.8 x 105 CFU/ML. This study revealed the presence of Klebsiella spp, Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis and Providencia spp. the total percentage frequency of the isolated organisms as thus: Klebsiella spp.26(31.7%), Escherichia coli 11(13.4%), Proteus mirabilis 15(18.3%) and Providencia spp.30(36.6%). In conclusion, the bacteria assessment showed that vended ready-to-eat fruits pose great risks to consumer health. Thus, urgent steps including awareness are needed to enhance personal hygiene and environmental hygiene of the vendors and processing. This will improve the quality of the vended fruits as well as the lifespan and well-being of its consumers.
