Hygienic Handling and Processing of Raw Beef Meat at Slaughter Houses and Meat Stalls in Gojjam Area, Ethiopia

A cross sectional study was conducted to assesses human resource capabilities, sanitation of slaughter houses and processing materials; and hygienic indicator microorganisms and specific foodborne pathogens. Observation survey was undertaken at all slaughter houses and meat-stalls; while interview data were collected from 54 slaughter house butchers. At the same time 21 meat samples were collected from 4, 8, 4 and 5 randomly selected meat stalls of Bure, Debremarkos, Dejen and Fenoteselam respectively from April to August. Slaughter house workers were not professionally trained and certified; most of them were not used aprons, hair cover and gumboots; and all had no overall cloth. The entire abattoirs had no clear division for slaughtering process, which undertaken simply on the ground and hanging were take place on simply constructed wood. Relatively Debremarkos (46.15%) abattoir had better sanitary standard, and followed with Fenoteselam (23.08%), Bure (15.38%) and Dejen (7.69%). The mean count of Enterobacteriaceae was not significantly (P≥0.05) different; but Escherichia coli, and Salmonella and Shigella species were significantly (P<0.05) different between places. From the total 33 bacterial isolates Escherichia coli (0.762) and Proteus vulgaris (0.381) were found in a higher ratio as compared with Salmonella Species (0.19), Shigellaflexneri (0.143) and Klebsiella pneumonia (0.095). In general the result of this study indicates poor hygienic handling practices of the raw meat production, so this could result in public health risk to the consumers. Hence it needs improved hygienic practice at all levels in the raw meat production industry.