Bacteria Contamination of Some Selected Seafoods in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

Seafood, which is an important source of protein in many diets around the world, especially in coastal areas, when harvested from polluted water harbours pathogenic organisms, resulting in food poisoning, which negatively impacts human health as well as the economy. The paper aims to explore bacterial contamination of Some Selected Seafoods in Port Harcourt, in Nigeria. Five different fresh raw seafoods (shrimp, periwinkle, crab, sardine fish and mudskipper) were randomly collected from fish harbours and fish markets in Port Harcourt and were evaluated for their bacteriological quality. The result shows that all the seafoods evaluated contain unacceptable levels of bacterial colonisation, with sardine fish having the highest level of contamination with Total Heterotrophic Bacterial Count (THBC) of 2.90x109cfu/g followed by periwinkle and shrimps, while crab had the lowest rate of contamination with THBC of 1.77x109cfu/g. A total of eight different pathogenic organisms were identified, viz Shigella sp, Salmonella sp, Pseudomonas sp, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter sp, Vibrio sp, Proteus sp and Klebsiella sp. The presence of these organisms in seafoods reveals that the water bodies are not only faecally contaminated but generally polluted. To this end, it is recommended that there should be a “State Seafood/Control Authority” to monitor the contamination of seafood and water bodies. Also, the Government should constitute a reliable surveillance system to monitor and prevent disease outbreaks, especially during floods and other natural disasters.