Microbial Contamination of Locally Prepared Snuff Sold at Eke Igboji Market, Ikwo, Ebonyi State

Among the various things made from tobacco is snuff. The microbiological contamination of locally made snuff sold in Eke-Igboji market was investigated using standard microbiological procedure. Aliquots (0.1 ml) of the serially-diluted samples were plated out on the surface of nutrient agar, mannitol salt agar and potato dextrose agar in petri dishes. The plates also had 0.05mg/ml of ketoconazole to inhibit fungal growth and the plates were incubated at 28˚C for 24 hours while for the fungi 0.05 mg/ml  of chloramphenicol  was used to inhibit bacterial growth while it was incubation was at 28˚C for 72 hours.The bacteria identified were Corynebacterium sp, Micrococcus sp, Staphylococcus sp, Bacillus sp and Pseudomonas sp whereas the fungi were Aspergillus sp, Rhizopus sp, Alternaria sp, Geotrichum sp, Penicillium sp and Aspergillus sp. The bacterial count were between 2.9 x 10² cfu/ml and 6.8 x 10² cfu/ml while the fungal count was from 1.0 x 10² cfu/ml to 4.4 x 10² cfu/ml. The most common type of bacteria found was Staphylococcus spp (52.43%) and Corynebacterium sp was the least common (7.65%) while for fungi Aspergillus spp  (27.00%) was found to be the most common while Geotrichum sp had the lowest frequency (5.40%).These microorganisms, which may have entered the snuff from the air, soil, dust, storage containers and human handlers are known to be harmful to humans. Therefore, in order to reduce the risk associated with the use of snuff by the snuff handlers, snuff must be processed and handled hygienically and the vendors should be educated on the health implications of taking a microbially contaminated snuff.