Parasitic Contamination of raw vegetables sampled from different farm locations in Brack Al-Shati, Libya
Article Sidebar
-
Brack Al-Shati, Contamination, Intestinal parasites, Libya, Vegetables.
Abstract
Background: Fresh Vegetables provide important nutritional value for humans; however, consumption of raw vegetables can be a major route for transmission of food-borne parasitic diseases. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the parasitic contamination of commonly consumed local vegetables in Brack Al-Shati, Libya. Methods: A total of 200 samples of fresh vegetables were randomly collected from vegetable farms in Brack Al-Shati, Libya. The vegetables included; green onion, lettuce, rocket, coriander, parsley, chard, mint, cucumber, carrot, tomato, and turnip. Samples were washed in saline, and the resulting washing solution was filtered and centrifuged to concentrate the parasitic stages. The sediments were examined by iodine and modified Ziehl-Neelsen stained smears. Results: The percentage of contamination was 33.0% (66/200), with predominance of nematode larvae (37.9 %), eggs of Ascaris (22.7%), cysts of Entamoeba spp. (18.2%), oocysts of Cryptosporidium spp. (16.7%), cysts of Giardia lamblia (3.0%) and eggs of Hymenolepis nana (1.5%). The highest number of contaminated samples was detected in rocket (70.1%) while the least number of contaminated samples was detected in green onion (6.7%). No parasite was detected in tomato samples. Conclusion: The study highlighted the importance of vegetables as the potential source for transmission of intestinal parasites to humans. Vegetables contaminated with the pathogenic parasites may pose health risk to the consumers if consumed without proper cleaning and or cooking.
Full text article
Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
In a brief statement, the rights relate to the publication and distribution of research published in the journal of the University of Sebha where authors who have published their articles in the journal of the university of Sebha should how they can use or distribute their articles. They reserve all their rights to the published works, such as (but not limited to) the following rights:
- Copyright and other property rights related to the article, such as patent rights.
- Research published in the journal of the University of Sebha and used in its future works, including lectures and books, the right to reproduce articles for their own purposes, and the right to self-archive their articles.
- The right to enter a separate article, or for a non-exclusive distribution of their article with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in the journal of Sebha University.
Privacy Statement The names and e-mail addresses entered on the Sabha University Journal site will be used for the aforementioned purposes only and for which they were used.
