Background; Vegetables and Fruits have got major acceptance in the modern scientific world nowadays and advisable to use more per daily food consumption. Their nature of harbouring different antioxidants and vitamins which are capable of preventing health risk diseases associated with consuming more protein and fatty foods (animal products), make them be selected to use more in recent time. Most people become a vegetarian or lacto vegetarian to avoid such general risks especially when they become around adulthood ages.

Although these food products have got more acceptance, their preparation and sanitation before consumption at household level have to get proper attention. This is because vegetables and fruits which are sold in the market can bring other side health risks since it mostly acts as a reservoir for many microorganisms. In most of the study, it is reported that these food types have higher microbial loads as the result of using different unclean water sources; from the rivers, ponds or other similar sources which have easily in contact with animal fecal matters. Their contact with dust and soil has also played a major role as a contamination source since soil harbours millions of parasites and bacteria which are capable in surviving these environments, like roundworms and several bacterial pathogens.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the microbial load of vegetables and fruits which were submitted at the Public health microbiology laboratory of Ethiopian Public Health Institute, within the period of 2008 to 2013.

Methods: Vegetables and fruits samples were collected and submitted to the public health microbiology laboratory for the purpose of monitoring and regulating their microbial quality, based on the standard protocol. All samples were analyzed and checked for the presence of Mold/yeast count, Aerobic plate count, Total coliform count, fecal coliform count and E.coli count, to determine their microbial contamination level, according to the American Public Health Association (APHA) protocol for viable bacteria count and the Nordic committee for National Reference laboratory (NMKL) protocol for the remaining; using a pour plate enumeration culture technique.

Result: a total number of sixty-three processed and final products were received per five to six years, which is around 4% (63/ 1554), out of the overall food types which were submitted in those indicated periods. From all tested samples around 12.7% (8/63) of the samples showed unacceptable microbial quality by mesophilic aerobic plate count, which is the highest percentage, followed by total coliforms 6.3% (4/63), fecal coliforms 3.2% (2/63), E.coli 1.6% (1/ 63%) and the mold count that is 1% (1/63), by referring acceptable reference protocols (ICMSF) per each test parameters under this food category. Around 90% of the samples were collected from Addis Ababa city, six samples from SNNPR (Southern Nation and Nationality of People Region) and one sample from Harar.

Discussion and Conclusion

Although vegetables and fruits are currently proved to be the best healthy foods worldwide and are available with low cost, in the developing countries like Ethiopia, their consumption rate is overwhelmed by cereals and animal products based on the life status of the community. The sample size per this food category can prove this fact. Only 4% of these food types were submitted to the laboratory per five to six years for the quality monitoring, by the regulatory body. In addition to these, even though the submitted food products are processed and ready to use for human consumption, around 3.2% of all harbours fecal coliform indicators, (which can be either one of these genus Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Escherichia or Citrobacter).  The presence of one of the above four genera can also indicate the possibility of detecting Salmonella and Shigella species in these food elements. Similarly, the best sanitation defect indicator; mesophilic aerobic plate count, which was calculated as around 12.7%%, also further proves us around one-fifth of the samples were microbiologically contaminated.

Therefore, joint efforts have to be exerted by different branches of MOH (Ministry of Health) for encouraging the community to use vegetables and fruits as its main food source for better health and to reduce nasty illnesses like diabetes, obesity, heart diseases and so on. However, while doing so, series health education has to be provided on sanitation procedures like immediate cooking or disinfection before consumption to prevent the community from environmental associated risks.