Bacterial Contamination of Chicken Eggs from Poultry Farms and Retail Markets in the New Juaben Municipality, Ghana

This cross-sectional study seeks to investigate the bacterial contamination of poultry products (eggs) produced from selected farms and sold within the major markets in the New Juaben Municipality in the Eastern region of Ghana. A total of 100 eggs were sampled randomly from October to December, 2018 from five poultry farms and five retail markets in the municipality for microbial evaluation. The collected swabs of eggshells and its contents collected at various times of the day were cultured on suitable media and standard microbiological test were performed to identify the isolated organisms. The entire eggshell samples were positive for bacteria with only 13 (13%) having growth in the egg content. The genera of bacteria recorded are Staphylococcus, Escherichia, Klebsiella, Proteus and Citrobacter. The mean total viable count of bacteria from both shell and content sampled from poultry farms and retail markets were 13.2×107cfu/ml and 8.0 ×107cfu/ml (p>0.05) respectively. These were higher than the acceptable value of 10×105 gm/cfu. The study also showed that the level of microbial contamination of the eggs was highest in the afternoon as compared to the morning and evening. The bacteria isolates and the sheer numbers from both the eggshells and the egg content confirm the poor hygienic conditions under which both the poultry farms and markets were kept. Even though serious human pathogens were not prevalent in this study, it is recommended that strict hygienic protocols be adhered to on the poultry farms and in the markets.