Isolation of Enterotoxigenic E. coli from Food-Handlers in Selected Tourist - Class Hotels in Nairobi

Abstract

A total of 3866 stool samples from food-handlers from tourist hotels in Nairobi were screened for the presence of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). This was done using the “salting out” (hydrophobicity) technique. Results showed an ETEC carriage of 3.4% among the tested hotel food-handlers. This is significant in the sense that it requires only one carrier to infect several people who eat/drink the contaminated food/drink. Thus, hygiene needs to be exercised all the time, otherwise the infected workers could easily pass-on the infection through food/drink contamination. Workers also need to be scanned regularly and those found infected kept from handling foods/drinks in hotels and other food/drink places. Some of these isolates exhibited multi-drug resistances, a characteristic which would worsen the situation for those infected, making treatment difficult.