English

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To assess the knowledge of hand washing and food handling practices of the street food vendors. STUDY DESIGN: Community based cross-sectional study conducted in Agartala municipal area. METHODS: Structured interview schedule was administered to 234 street food vendors selected by probability proportionate to size sampling technique during 1st July to 31st August 2011. Microsoft Excel and Epi-info version-6 were used for data entry and analysis and p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: One hundred and seventeen vendors (50%) were aged between 30 - 40 years and 98.29% were males. Forty eight (20.5%) vendors were illiterate and 40.2% vendors were from rural areas. One hundred and five vendors (44.9%) with primary and 78 (32.1%) with secondary level education knew that unclean hands and dishes can transmit diseases while serving roadside foods. 58.3%, 61.9%, and 69.23% of the vendors were illiterate, primary and secondary educated respectively. Majority of them were not using soap for washing hands. 87.5%, 58.09%, 74.3% and 50% of the illiterate, primary educated, secondary educated, and senior secondary educated vendors did not use detergent for washing dishes before and after each serving. One hundred and sixty five (70.5%) vendors stored unsold food for the next day, while 29.1% of the vendors discarded the left-over food. CONCLUSIONS: Basic food safety knowledge and practice of hygiene and sanitation by the street food vendors was found to be inadequate. Issuing of food license to them should be subjected to fulfillment the above conditions or they should be trained regarding safe food handling.