Assessment of hand washing facilities, personal hygiene and the bacteriological quality of hand washes in some grocery and dairy shops in alexandria, egypt.

UNLABELLED: Food produced with satisfactory hygienic standards is one of the essential conditions for promoting and preserving health. A total of 15 grocery and dairy shops were randomly selected from Alexandria, Egypt to assess their hand washing facilities and personal hygiene of food handlers using a pre-designed sanitation checklist. Also the bacteriological profile of the handlers' hand washes was determined. Only 20% of these shops were acceptable concerning their hand washing facilities ((3) 50% score percentages). Observing 29 food handlers revealed that only 3.4% of them were acceptable in their personal hygiene with a mean score percentage of only 31.0 +/- 9.2. Although the hand washing method followed by the food handlers significantly decreased both aerobic mesophilic and staphylococci counts, they were still high. Moreover, fecal coliforms increased insignificantly from 5 to 7 MPN/100ml indicating that the hand washing was improperly done due several pitfalls. Most of the handlers who washed their hands for less than 10 seconds (41.4%) had higher counts of aerobic mesophiles and staphylococci than those who washed for more 10 seconds. Most of the handlers (93.1%) did not avoid contamination from the tap after hand washing. Moreover, their hand washes were contaminated with fecal coliforms (8 MPN/100ml) and with slightly higher staphylococci counts than those who avoid contamination either by rinsing a tap or closing it by elbow. RECOMMENDATIONS: Much effort should be done from the responsible authority to improve the sanitation inside these shops and food handlers should be given in-service training to know how to efficiently wash their hands.