Microbiological safety of street-vended foods in Bangladesh

At present, street-vended food (SVF) is becoming a serious public health concern due to the intervention of different pathogenic microorganisms. The lack of hygiene in the preparation of SVFs pose risk factors for foodborne disease outbreaks worldwide. This paper reviews the microbiological quality of SVFs between developed and developing countries to understand the similarity, gap and comparative nature of microbial promulgation. The microbial quality of 64 different types of SVFs in Bangladesh was tested and analyzed, and then compared with studies on SVFs in other countries. Most of the SVF samples from all examined places had a high microbial load (≥ 105) with identical sources and propagation characteristics. E. coli, Bacillus cereus and coliform bacteria had the highest prevalence in SVFs from Bangladesh. The presence of antibiotic-resistant microbes such as Enteriobacteriaceae and Salmonella in SVFs showed the greatest variable resistance response against a large groups of antimicrobials. Taken together, we found that the microbiological quality of SVFs and thereof the associated health problems are almost indistinguishable all over the world. Furthermore, the intervention options are very limited and are not really applied in practice. In addition, a single-focused intervention only partially succeeded. Thus, we have summarized potential options to regulate the quality of SVFs through proper hygiene practices.