Nagaraja B 1 , Nageswara Rao P 2
Fruit and sugarcane juices are nutritious drinks with great taste and health benefits. Food borne illnesses associated with consumption of Fruit and sugarcane juices at several places in India and elsewhere. Fruit juices were served with added ice pieces. Hygienic standards are not maintained while transporting from the field to the place of extraction and preparation. Hence a rapid review of the fruit juices from street vendors has been undertaken along with sugarcane juice. Raw sugarcane juice is a refreshing juice in many parts of Andhra Pradesh. The present study is to assess the prevalence of different organisms from different fruit juices collected from street vendors. METHODS Fruit juices are collected namely sugarcane, sweet lemon, orange, grape apple, pineapple pomegranate. A total 100 samples of fruit juices were collected from road side from different vendors. 150 ml of each variety of fruit juices were collected from different vendors in screw capped bottles and subjected to microbial analysis, processed with in 30mts in the department of microbiology at KIMS by standard methods. RESULTS The analysed samples of fruit juices are found to be contaminated with different bacteria, Escherichia coli 30% Klebsiella pneumoniae 10% Staphylococcus aureus 20% Enterococcus faecalis 04% Pseudomonas aeruginosa 10% ASB 04% (aerobic spore bearers) Micrococci 02% Proteus 20% Salmonella. Shigella and Vibrios were not isolated. CONCLUSION It is high time that street vendors should have health education by volunteers, health workers from PHC (primary health centers) and people well versed with community medicine practice for implementation of standard hygienic protocols may reduce contamination of fruit and sugarcane juices The concerned health authorities need to ensure and insist to follow the protocols by the vendors and license holders to the vendors.
