Safeguarding health on every plate: Intestinal parasitic infection survey of food handlers in a tertiary care centre

Rajendra Gudisa; Sumeeta Khurana; Abhishek Mewara; Priya Datta

doi:10.1016/j.ijmmb.2024.100604

Safeguarding health on every plate: Intestinal parasitic infection survey of food handlers in a tertiary care centre

Indian J Med Microbiol. 2024 May 10:49:100604. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmmb.2024.100604. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Rajendra Gudisa¹, Sumeeta Khurana², Abhishek Mewara³, Priya Datta⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Parasitology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, 160012, India. Electronic address: raaj0047@gmail.com.
² Department of Medical Parasitology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, 160012, India. Electronic address: sumeetakhurana@hotmail.com.
³ Department of Medical Parasitology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, 160012, India. Electronic address: abhimewara@yahoo.com.
⁴ Department of Medical Parasitology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, 160012, India. Electronic address: drpriyadatta@hotmail.com.

PMID: 38723715
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmmb.2024.100604

Abstract

Food borne infections pose significant public health problem, especially in developing countries of the world. A continuous surveillance to ensure the health of the personnel involved in preparation of the hospital food is important as they can be a source of spreading the infections and possible outbreaks. We analysed the data of the prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections in food handlers in our tertiary care centre from 2018 to 2022 and 6.8% were observed to harbour intestinal parasites during the period. This signifies the importance of routine screening, and the need of awareness and education of the food handlers in hospitals.

Keywords: Food handler safety; Infection control; Intestinal parasitic infections.