Species Identification of Mealie Meal Spoilage Organisms and Pathogenic Bacteria from Selected Food Stores in Lusaka District of Zambia

Background: Mealie Meal is one of the by-products of maize from dry milling. It constitutes more significant part of the daily diet of growing population of the Lusaka District of Zambia. However, reported cases of a cholera outbreak in October 2017-May 2018 were attributed to water contamination in the households of Lusaka. Hitherto there is no previous study or documented data for gastroenteritis caused by microbial contamination from food stores. Aim: The main objective of the study was to carry out species identification of Mealie meal spoilage organisms and pathogenic bacteria from selected food stores in Lusaka district from September 2019-March 2020. Crosssectional survey was conducted for food spoilage organisms and pathogenic bacteria of packaged maize meal flour from a selected food store. The number of packaged Mealie meal samples from selected food stores included in the study was 143 samples. Samples were obtained by a simple stratified random selection from food stores in Lusaka District. Thus Mealie Meal samples bought from Street food vendors were 96 (67%), Shops—30 (21%), Malls—17 (11.9%). Subsequently isolation by spread and pour plate methods, and species identification of microbial contamination by Cell Culture processes coupled to microbial morphological and biochemical characterization was performed. Microsoft Office Excel (version 2007) Spreadsheet was employed for the categorical data analysis and summarized graphical presentation of data. Laboratory findings revealed: Spoilage organisms—Aspergillum species, Mucor Species, Candida Species, Clostridium Species and Bacillus Species; Pathogenic Bacteria Species—Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium tetani, Bacillus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Yesinia pestis. It can be established from the laboratory results earlier mentioned that the food poisoning outbreak could evolve from food stores in Lusaka district apart from water contamination.