S. E. Suliman

Food Safety Knowledge among Food Workers in Restaurants of Salalah Municipality in Sultanate of Oman

This survey was conducted from June to December 2012 in Salalah Municipality, Sultanate of Oman, to investigate the knowledge of restaurants workers about food safety-related issues. A total of questionnaireguided interviews with 21restaurant workers and food handlers were carried out. Major food safety knowledge concepts including personal hygiene, prevention of cross contamination, general sanitation, safe storage of food, knowledge of health problems that would affect food safety, knowledge of symptoms of foodborne illnesses, and knowledge of important foodborne pathogens were investigated. The responses of interviewed workers varied considerably. In general, the workers had good knowledge about some food safety-related issues and not enough knowledge about other issues. Although the results of the questionnaire showed that the majorityof the food workers and handlers know the importance of washing hands before work and proper cleaning and handing of instruments and kitchen utensils and their role in reducing the risk of food contamination, in addition to their knowledge that eating and drinking at the work place increases the risk of food contamination, its observed that these workers do not practice that as a part of their routine work. Therefore, training programs are warranted together with continuous monitoring of the workers’ behavior and practices. Keywords— Food safety, knowledge, food workers,

Seroprevalence and risk factors of brucellosis in camels in and around Alzulfi, Saudi Arabia

This cross-sectional study was conducted from December 2013 to November 2014 to determine the seroprevalence of brucellosis in camels and to investigate its risk factors in and around Alzulfi, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A total of 750 sera were collected from camels from 59 herds and tested using Rose Bengal Plate Test (RBPT) and Compelisa (cELISA). The overall seroprevalences were 6.5% using RBPT and 3.2% using cELISA while the herd-prevalence was 45.8% and the within-herd prevalence ranged from 1.0% to 9.9%. With exception of between-locations, there were no significant statistical variations between the seroprevalence estimated for the different categories of the investigated risk factors. In the univariate analysis, location (χ2=13.65, p=0.001) and watering (χ2=4.830, p=0.028) were statistically associated with RBPT-positivity whereas, location (χ2=4.304, p=0.038), age (χ2=6.306, p=0.043) and awareness (χ2=5.106, p=0.024) were associated with cELISA-positivity. The multivariate analysis showed that camels in Alzulfi (Exp(B)=3.13, p=0.001) and she-camels (Exp(B)=2.38, p=0.038) were related to RBPT-positivity and camels in Alzulfi (Exp(B)=5.76, p=0.001), the age-group 6–10 years old (Exp(B)=6.55, p=0.016) and semi-intensive husbandry (Exp(B)=5.80, p=0.009) were associated with cELISA-positivity. A substantial agreement between the 2 tests was shown by Kappa analysis. In conclusion, the seroprevalence reported in this study was not similar in and around Alzulfi. A wide-area multi-animal species survey of brucellosis is warranted in Saudi Arabia.