Análise microbiológica das mãos dos manipuladores de alimentos de uma unidade de alimentação e nutrição institucional.

Abstract

Once in contact with food, the food handlers can transfer, through their hands, microorganisms witch can compromise the final foog quality, causing possible intoxication on people. In this sense, the objective of this study was to evaluate the level of microbiological contamination of the food handler’s hands in an institutional facility (UAN). A microbiological collection was performed on the surface of each UAN nine food handler’s hands. The collection was performed at the beginning of the work journey, just after the staff had done their hands sanitation and felt to be able to develop their activities. The samples collection procedure consisted of swabbing the hands’ surface. The evaluation of the food handlers hand’s microbiological contamination level was established on performing the following analysis: NMP of total and thermo tolerant coliforms, plate count of aerobic mesophilic microorganisms and Staphylococcus aureus positive coagulase. It was detected that only one sample (N1) has shown a significant amount of total coliforms. The thermo tolerant coliforms tests were negative for all samples. On the count of the aerobic mesophilic bacterias, varying levels of contamination were observed, however they were low if compared to other authors’ results. Only the N1 sample has shown higher levels compared to other authors. Regarding to the Staphylococcus aureus positive coagulase, there was confirmed the presence of this microorganism in one sample (N5). Therefore, we concluded that in most cases, the results are within the expected range of contamination, requiring further adjustments so that the hand´s hygienic process of the food handlers do not offer any risc of contamination, and in this way, can be considered valid.