RESULTS
Food handlers from formally registeredfood services centers (restaurants and hotels)
and informal establishments (streets) within
Abeokuta metropolis were used for this
study. Based on the type of vending site, the
vendors were grouped into six categories:
hawkers, roadside, open air, roofed/closed
canteen, restaurants and hotels.
The categories and number of vendors sampled
in each category are presented in Table
1.
Twenty one (24.14%) of the food handlers
sampled operated in roofed/closed canteen
while 15 (17.24%) operated as hawkers
(Table 1).
With the exception of the hawkers who are
mobile, all the other food handlers are stationary.
The hawkers prepared their foods at
home and sell by moving from place to
place. The road side food handlers and the
open air vendors are similar except that the
former operated by the road side while the
latter operated at different places like
schools, mechanic villages, hospitals and motor
parks. Some of them prepare the food
from home while others prepare the food at
the open air vending site. Food handlers in
closed canteens operated in closed wooden
structures with roofs. They usually prepare
the food and sell at the vending site. They
have chairs and tables for customers who
want to eat in. In hotels, apart from meals,
lodging facilities are usually available.
Table 1 also shows the percentages of food
handlers with or without health certificate.
All (100%) of the food handlers from the
hotels had their health certificate which
showed that they have undergone the routine
medical check-up for the year. None of
the hawkers studied had ever done the routine
medical checkup. Two (15.4%) out ofthe 13 road side food handlers had the
health certificate while 10 (47.6%) of the 21
roofed/closed canteen handlers had the
certificate. On the whole, out of the 87
food handlers sampled, only 38 (43.7%) had
the health certificate while 49 (56.3%) had
never done the annual routine medical
check hence they could not present the certificate.
Table 2 presents the level of microbial contamination
on the palms of food handlers at
the time of sampling. The mean total aerobic
plate counts ranged from 1.4 + 0.1 log
cfu/g on the hands of food handlers operating
in hotels to 7.2 + 0.7 log cfu/g in
hawkers.
There were no significance difference in the
mean aerobic plate counts between food
handlers in roofed/closed canteen and the
hawkers. However, mean aerobic counts
obtained for food handlers in hotels was