BACTERIAL BURDEN AND POTENTIAL PUBLIC HEALTH RISKS OF LOCALLY MADE SNUFFS SOLD IN EBONYI STATE, NIGERIA.

The unsanitary conditions often associated with the preparation and marketing of locally-made snuff in southeastern Nigeria suggest a potential for contamination with a microbial population that can endanger the health of snuff consumers. This study examined the bacteriological quality of locally-made snuff sold in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Sixty-four (64) samples of locally-made tobacco products (32 fermented dried tobacco leaves and 32 snuff samples) were purchased from different tobacco shops in two senatorial zones of the state and processed using standard microbiological techniques. The results revealed the mean total aerobic bacterial counts of locally-made snuff from Ebonyi Central and Ebonyi South as 3.14x10 6 and 2.08x10 6 cfu/g respectively, while fermented dried tobacco leaves recorded mean total aerobic bacterial counts of 1.17x10 6 and 1.83x10 6 cfu/g for Ebonyi Central and Ebonyi South respectively. Seven (7) bacterial genera totaling 247 isolates were recovered including: Escherichia coli (49/247, 33.1%) , Salmonella spp. (41/247, 16.6%) , Staphylococcus aureus (40/247, 16.2%) , Shigella spp. (38/247, 15.4%), Streptococcus pyogenes (29/247, 11.74%) , Klebsiella spp. (29/247, 11.74%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (21/247, 8.5%). The result of multiple antibiotic resistant index (MARI) revealed that Shigella spp. had the highest MARI of 0.8 and Staphylococcus aureus recorded the least (0.02). The study showed that the locally-made snuff sold in the zones were highly burdened with potential bacterial pathogens with high multi-antibiotic resistance indexes..

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