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Aims: The study investigated the presence of entities causing diarrhea (Shigella & Salmonella) from some selected seafood.
Study Design: The study adopted a completely randomized experimental Design.
Place and Duration of Study: Department of Medical Microbiology, Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH), between January 2020 and February 2020.
Methodology: Simple random technique was employed to collect sufficient quantities of five different fresh raw seafoods (shrimp, periwinkle, crab, sardine fish and mudskipper) across fish harbors and fish markets (Nembe waterside, Abonema Wharf and 1 Fish Market) in Port Harcourt, and were evaluated for bacteriological quality. Sample collection was a cross-sectional type. The isolation and identification of isolates were done according to standard bacteriological analytical methods. The study employed Frequency counts, percentages and one- way ANOVA statistics, and the analysis was done using SPSS version 23. Although, one-way ANOVA statistics was used to test the hypothesis of the study at 0.05 level of significance, while Tukey’s test was used for ranking means.
Results: The finding showed that 53 percent of the isolates (i.e. 8 out of 15 isolates) were characterized as Salmonella and Shigella. Also, the result shows that all the seafood evaluated contain unacceptable levels of Salmonella and Shigella contamination, which ranged from 1.79 x107 CFU/g to 2.96 x107CFU/g. The level of contamination found in the selected seafood is shown in descending order from the highest to the lowest: Sardine> Periwinkle> Shrimps> Mudskipper> Crab. More so, result from the hypothesis showed that there was a significant mean difference in the Salmonella and Shigella count amongst selected seafood (P < .001).
Conclusion: The results of this study constitute an indicator of fecal contamination in selected seafood from fish markets in Port Harcourt. Amongst others, it was recommended that Government should enforce laws discouraging the dumping of untreated waste into water bodies.
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