Abstract
As the global urban populations increase with rapid migration from rural areas, ready-to-eat (RTE) street foods are posing food safety challenges where street foods are prepared with less structured food safety guidelines in small and roadside outlets. The increased presence of extended-spectrum-β-lactamase (ESBL) producing bacteria in street foods is a significant risk for human health because of its epidemiological significance. Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae have become important and dangerous foodborne pathogens globally for their relevance to antibiotic resistance. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the potential burden of antibiotic-resistant E. coli and K. pneumoniae contaminating RTE street foods and to assess the microbiological quality of foods in a typical emerging and growing urban suburb of India where RTE street foods are rapidly establishing with public health implications. A total of 100 RTE food samples were collected of which, 22.88% were E. coli and 27.12% K. pneumoniae. The prevalence of ESBL-producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae was 25.42%, isolated mostly from chutneys, salads, paani puri, and chicken. Antimicrobial resistance was observed towards cefepime (72.9%), imipenem (55.9%), cefotaxime (52.5%), and meropenem (16.9%) with 86.44% of the isolates with MAR index above 0.22. Among β-lactamase encoding genes, blaTEM (40.68%) was the most prevalent followed by blaCTX (32.20%) and blaSHV (10.17%). blaNDM gene was detected in 20.34% of the isolates. This study indicated that contaminated RTE street foods present health risks to consumers and there is a high potential of transferring multi-drug-resistant bacteria from foods to humans and from person to person as pathogens or as commensal residents of the human gut leading to challenges for subsequent therapeutic treatments.
Highlights
Ready-to-eat (RTE) street foods have food safety challenges globally and are defined as foods for immediate consumption or subsequent use without further processing or preparation and are sold as common street foods in small roadside outlets [1]
This study indicated that contaminated RTE street foods present health risks to consumers and there is a high potential of transferring multi-drug-resistant bacteria from foods to humans and from person to person as pathogens or as commensal residents of the human gut leading to challenges for subsequent therapeutic treatments
Since there is substantial data available to focus on E. coli and other major foodborne pathogens from various sources, this may have resulted in underestimating K. pneumoniae as a potential organism prevalent in RTE street foods and ESBL producers
Summary
Ready-to-eat (RTE) street foods have food safety challenges globally and are defined as foods for immediate consumption or subsequent use without further processing or preparation and are sold as common street foods in small roadside outlets [1]. RTE street foods could be consumed raw or cooked, hot or cold. Fruits (cut fruits or fruit mixtures) bought directly from street vendors, or local street markets could be considered RTE if eaten immediately, i.e., without necessarily having to wash, peel, or cut before consumption [2]. The entry points of foodborne pathogens are from readily contaminated foods from different sources which lack structured hygiene practices during processing, preparation, and storage [5,6]
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