Parasitological Assessment of Green Leafy Vegetables Sold at Masaka and Karu Markets in Nasarawa State of Nigeria

Abstract

This research studied the Parasitological Assessment of Green leafy vegetables sold at Masaka market Karu. The vegetables were purchased from masaka market three times a week and washed for two minutes in 250ml of normal saline and spun in a centrifuge at 3000rpm for 5 minutes, smears made on glass slides were prepared from the deposits post centrifugation, sample slides was stained with lugol’s iodine and viewed in x10 and x40 objectives. Five parasites including Hookworm, Taenia spp, Ascaris lumbricoides, Entameoba histolytica and Trichuris trichura. Hookworm had the highest frequency and Ascaris lumbricoides with the lowest. A total of 10 types of vegetables were, these were, Fluted pumpkin leaf, lettuce, spinach, scent leaf, false cubeb leaf, sorrel leaf, cabbage, curry leaf, Waterleaf and Garden egg leaf. False cubeb leaf had the highest contamination while scent leaf had the lowest. A total of 200 vegetables washed were used, 129 were contaminated while 71 were not. Total prevalence of parasites present in this study was gotten to be was 64.5% with hookworm as the highest (34.5%). Data analysis was carried out by Chi square test the value was gotten to be 50.000 with df of 25. The P value was gotten to be 0.02 which is less than 0.05 which proves the alternate hypothesis to be accepted and alternate to be accepted. This shows that there was parasitic contamination present in these vegetables sold at Masaka market, Karu.