3.3.3. Food handling and health problems/personal hygiene
It seems that food handlers from the three European countries,
were not able to distinguish different health problems and the
possibilities to transmit pathogens to food they were working with.
On one side they correctly indicated that it is not allowed to handle
food when having health problems (Table 2), such as vomiting
(93.7%), wounds on hands (93.4%), cuts (89.8%), cold (88.6%) diarrhoea
(80.9%) or raised fever (71.3%). Nevertheless, our results
indicated that almost 30.5% of all food handlers were not aware that
hypertension, in spite of being a very serious illness, is not connected
with food-borne pathogens and therefore people suffering
from hypertension are allowed to work in food production and
service. There was significantly greater percentage of food handlers
from Portugal (95%) that correctly answer this question, compared
to handlers from Greece and Serbia (60.4 and 63.3%, respectively,
p < 0.05). Almost half of all food handlers involved in this study was
not aware of the fact that a protective mask serves as a barrier/
protection of spreading microbial pathogens (Table 2). Again, Portuguese
food handlers showed significantly better performance
than Greeks or Serbians on this question (p < 0.05). Nevertheless,
when participants were asked if they can handle food when
suffering of diarrhoea, which is one of the most frequent symptoms
of food-borne diseases, only 64.2% of Portuguese food handlers
answered correctly, which was significantly lower than in the cases
of the Greek or Serbian food handlers (81.8 and 87.8%, respectively,
p < 0.05).
Considering food handlers' knowledge on hand hygiene, most of
them (average value above 90.0%) were aware of the requirement
for washing hands after handling waste (98.4%), using toilette,
handling raw food or blowing nose (97.0%) or eating and drinking
(90.4%). This outcome is most probably a consequence of the fact
that hand hygiene is the most often monitored operation and
possible focus of previous trainings and communication between
food handlers and food safety managers. It is of note that at all
times, significantly lower percentage of Greek food handlers
correctly answer questions related to hand hygiene compared to
the Serbian or Portuguese ones (Table 2