Fungal Quality of Fresh Shrimp Sold at Ndibe-Beach in Afikpo, Ebonyi State.

Abstract

The Fungal quality of fresh shrimp collected from Ndibe-beach in Afikpo North Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Nigeria was investigated using standard microbiological procedures. A total of 60g samples sourced from three vendors (A, B, and C) within the beach was used for the study. The shrimp samples were categorized according to size into big, medium and small. These sizes were divided into head, body and tail. The result of this study revealed that the average fungal loads are: 2.07×10 6, 0.39×10 6 and 0.79×10 6 for head, body and tail respectively. Also five fungal isolates were identified which include: Aspergillus spp, Fusarium spp, Penicillium spp, Rhizopus spp and Mucor spp. The result on percentage frequency of occurrence of the fungi revealed that Aspergillus and Fusarium species have the highest frequency of occurrence of 8(25%) for vendor A, Aspergillus at 7(28%) for vendor B and also Aspergillus at 7(27%) for vendor C while Rhizopus species have the lowest frequency of occurrence at 4(12.5%), 4(16%) and 3(11.5%) for vendors A, B and C respectively. These results showed that the fresh shrimp may have been contaminated either by the handlers (mongers) or the environment the shrimp is gotten from and these can lead to food poisoning if not adequately cooked before consumption.