ABSTRACT

 The hands of food handlers are a major vehicle of food cross-contamination, so an improved personal hygiene and hand washing would lead to the basic control of faeces-to-hand to-mouth spread ofpotentially pathogenic transient microorganisms. This research work aim is to determine the microbial species associated with hand offood handlers and their antibiotics sensitivity pattern. A total oftwenty (20) samples were analyzed. The study identified microorganisms belonging to the genera Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia Staphylococcus aureus Staphylococcus epidemidis, Shigella species, Streptococcus species, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, and Rhizopus stolonizer. Escherichia coli had highest frequency ofisolates of 12 (20.0%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus with 11 isolate and frequency of(18.3%), while Streptococcus species had the least isolates of 2 (3.3%) The antibiotics susceptibility pattern of the isolates was carried out using the Kirby Bauer Disk diffusion method and the organisms showed varying susceptibility patterns to the tested antibiotics. The antibiotics tested were Ofloxacin 5ug, Centazidine 30ug, Gentamycin lOug, Ceftriaxone 30ug, Erythromycin 30ug, Cioxacillin 5ug , Cefuroxomime 30ug, Augumentin 30ug, Ketoconazole 5ug, Fluconazole 5ug and Nystatin5ug. Gentamycin were most effective at (82.2%), followed by ofloxacin (71.1%) and Ceftriaxone with (48.9%) respectively. While cloxacillin antibiotic was (100%) resistant, followed by Cefuroxomime with (91.1%) and regarded as antifungal sensitive. Nystatin has (73.3%) followed by Fluconazole with (66.7%) and Ketoconazole were highly resistant with (73.3%) towards the fungal species isolated, majority of hands of food handlers in Umudike Umuahia were contaminated with one or more different pathogenic bacteria. The presence ofthese bacteria in hands could lead to contamination of food which may cause potential health problems for consumers. Gentamycin, ofloxacin and Ceftriaxone were found to be the most effective antimicrobials against all the bacterial isolates