Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practices on Food Safety of Beef Among Meat Handlers at Homes and Slaughter Houses in and Around Babich and Gedo Towns, West Shewa Zone, Ethiopia

Description of the Study Areas

The study was conducted in and around Babich and Gedo towns in Liban Jawi and Chaliya Districts of West Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. Liban Jawi District is one of the 22 districts found in West Shewa Zone and located about 162 km West of Addis Ababa, at altitude of 904ʹ52ʺ N and longitude of 37028ʹ30ʺ E (http://www.Weather-atlas.com). The mean annual minimum and maximum temperatures are 18.87°C and 23.7°C, respectively. Liban Jawi district was bordered by Mida Kegn district to the North, Jibat district to the South, Toke Kutaye district to the East, and Chaliya district to the West. Mixed farming system is the mode of agriculture in the district in which livestock play an important role for the livelihood of the population. The livestock population of the area comprises of 73229 cattle, 24503 equine, 51764 shoat and 90,025 poultry [18].

Chaliya district was also located in West Shewa Zone; Oromia Regional State of Western Ethiopia which is 178 km West of Addis Ababa. Chaliya district had a total population of 132348, of whom 62524 were men and 69824 women. The geographical locations of the study district lies at an altitude ranging from 1500 to 3051meters above sea level. The annual mean minimum and maximum temperatures are

10oCand 25oC, respectively with average temperatures of 16o C. Average annual rain fall is from 900 to 1400 mm.

Study Populations

Selected kebeles of Liban Jawi District had an estimated 301 households. There were about 13 slaughter house personnel. Selected kebeles of Chaliya district also had an estimated 317 households. There were 15 slaughter house personnel.

Sample Populations

A total of 160 meat handlers at home were interviewed from the two study districts. All kebeles in and around Babich and Gedo towns were identified for the study in consultation with livestock and fishery development offices of the respective districts, and the study kebeles were selected purposively based on their accessibility. Then after, household data were obtained from the local agricultural development agent offices, and individual respondents were randomly selected from the list provided. The respondents were interviewed after obtaining their verbal consent for participation. In addition to these, a total of 9 slaughter house personnels were randomly selected from the two districts and interviewed using the questionnaire format.

Study Design

A cross sectional study was conducted from November 2021 to April 2022 in and around Babich and Gedo towns. A semi- structured questionnaire survey technique was applied to gather information from individual respondents.

Questionnaire survey: Semi-structured questionnaires were adopted from a published research article by Adesokan and Raji in order to meet the objectives of this study. A face-to-face interview technique was employed to collect information from the study respondents. The questionnaire was structured into four distinct parts:

The first part includes demographic information of the respondents: gender, marriage status, level of education, years of service, employment status, health certificate renewal and status of prior food safety training. The second section of the questionnaire deals on food safety knowledge of the respondents including knowledge on personal hygiene, cross contamination and time temperature control. Each question has three optional answers (“yes”, “no” and “do not know the answer”). The response was analyzed as categorical variables (Yes or No). Meat handlers that got overall score (≤ 63.63% accuracy) were considered to have unsatisfactory and those scored (≥ 68 % accuracy) satisfactory knowledge of food safety. The third part of the questionnaire was about food safety attitude of the meat handlers. It comprises questions about attitude of hand washing, cross contamination, food handling, storage, etc. In this section, the respondents’ answers were “agree”, “disagree”, and “don‘t know”. The response was analyzed as categorical variables (right or wrong answer). For evaluation, food-handlers that answered more (70% accuracy) or more questions correctly were measured to have “good” attitude whereas respondents answer less questions correctly were measured to have “poor” attitude. The fourth section of the questionnaire deals with food hygiene practices. The questions are comprised of the issues of personal hygiene, hand washing practices and cross contamination. These questions have two possible responses: “yes” and “no”. For evaluation, a score ≥ 70% considered as having “good” food hygienic practice [19].

Observation: Primary data collection was performed through observations made during the sampling process in which a number of factors including facilities, equipment, and current status of food hygiene and status of knowledge and sanitation practice were assessed.

Sample Size and Sampling Technique

A cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted from November, 2021 to April, 2022 to assess the level of awareness of meat handlers at homes, slaughter house personnel about their habitual practices on beef safety management. The sample size for this questionnaire survey was calculated by using formula by Arsham: n=(0.4225) SE2 Where: n=sample size, SE (Standard error) =5%.

Accordingly, the calculated sample size for the survey was 169 and individual respondents were randomly selected.

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

The family traits of respondents (Table 1) the data shown that all percentage of respondents, participated in the study areas were male headed (100%). The maritus status of respondents were married (78.7%), followed by single (21.3%) while religious were 98.2% Christians and 1.8 % Muslims. The majority of the respondents were illiterate (44.3%), primary school (36.0 %), secondary school (14.7%) and followed by college (4.1 %) and University graduates (2.9 %). The employment statuses of the respondents were 94.7 % unemployed and 5.3 % contract employed. The level of education attained, 44.4% of the slaughter personnel have got a level of secondary education which is lower than the report by Nyamakwere and higher than that report by Mothafar who reported about 48.3% and 18% secondary education level, respectively. But the 33.3% primary level education from this research is higher than the report of Chayane, Nyamakwere and Mothafar who reported 31.25%, 26.7% and 26% primary education, respectively. However, 22.2% of them were illiterate which is lower than 25% showed by Nyamakwere. In this finding, all the respondents have no health certificate which is not in agreement with the finding of Nyamakwere and Mothafar that reported majority (62.5% and 70%, respectively) had health certificates (Table 1).

Food Safety Knowledge of Meat Handlers at Home

The overall food safety knowledge of the respondents was summarized in Table 2. About 56.8% of respondents had answered the questions correctly indicating unsatisfactory knowledge level which is below the cut of point (≥ 68% accuracy) which is less than the given standard (≥68%). However, almost all meat handlers were aware of the fact that improper handling of meat could pose health hazards to consumers (89.4%) and regular washing of hands before and during meat processing reduce risk of contamination (88.1%). According to the Codex Aliment Arius Commission, improper food handling was a major cause of foodborne diseases and poor hand hygiene was an important risk factor in the occurrence of food contamination. Knowing the importance of proper handling of meat, proper hand washing and other important hygienic procedures by the meat handlers is very important since meat handlers can serve as vehicles for cross contamination and spread foodborne pathogens. This study indicated that 100% of meat handlers have similar understanding about proper meat handling and hand washing which is higher than the report of Hapala and Probart who reported correct answers by most of their participants about hand washing question.

The respondents had low knowledge level about eating and drinking in the work place as a causative factor to increase the risk level of meat contamination (8.1% ), microbes found on the skin, nose and mouth of meat handlers as a causative factor of health problem (15.6%) and contaminated meat always has some change in color, odor or taste (100%). Most of the respondents did not know the fact that people with open skin injury, gastroenteritis, and ear or throat disease should not be allowed to handle meat and also did not know about cross contamination by meat handlers or utensils (34.4% answer correctly). Washing hands by food handlers during processing is considered as one key important hygienic practice to prevent cross contamination. In this finding, 77.8% of the respondents washed their hands before and after handling meat. Even though the result of this finding contradicts with the reports by a number of authors from other places in the world where washing hand and sanitization was found to be inadequate, which is lower than the finding reported by Assefa who indicated all respondents always wash and properly sanitize their hands before starting the slaughter process (Table 2).

Attitude of Meat Handlers about Food Safety at Home

Table 3 below summarized food safety attitudes of the meat handlers. Around 45.4% of the respondents have agreed answering correct attitude of food safety. In this finding, 77.8% of the respondents washed their hands before and after handling meat. Even though the result of this finding contradicts with the reports by a number of authors from other places in the world where washing hand and sanitization was found to be inadequate, which is lower than the finding reported by Assefa who indicated all respondents always wash and properly sanitize their hands before starting the slaughter process. Meat handlers’ attitude towards taking regular training for better meat safety and hygienic practices (96.9%) is promising. They also have satisfactory knowledge about keeping working surfaces and utensils clean to reduce the risk of illness (91.2%). On the other hand, about 88.8% of the respondents believed that inspecting meat for freshness and wholesomeness is valuable. But, the respondents had the lowest attitude concerning the following points: meat handlers with wounds, bruises or injuries on their hands must not touch or handle meat, safe meat handling to avoid contamination and they hardly consider this is part of meat handlers’ responsibilities. They also don’t understand that using different knives for meat and offal are worthy to reduce contamination and knives should be properly sanitized to prevent cross contamination (13.1%, 45.6%, 21.3% and 33.1%, respectively).

About 24.4% of the respondents recommended that wearing protective clothing and shoes could help to improve work safety and hygienic practices whereas, 18.1% said putting on hair cover on the head are a good practice. It is only around 18.1% of the respondents in this study who understood that sneezing or coughing without covering the nose or mouth could contaminate the meat. These showed that the respondents have generally low attitude on food safety. The result of this study showed that 66.7% of the slaughter personnel were wearing protective clothing which is similar to the report by Nyamakwere who pointed out that most of the slaughter personnel always put on protective clothing during slaughtering.

Lack of training among food handlers has negative consequence on performing behaviors. In this study, all of the slaughter personnel (100%) have not attended food safety training. This is in contrary to that reported by Nyamakwere who indicated a relatively lower proportion of respondents (30%) did not receive any food safety training before attaining abattoir employment and contrary to a percent of trained workers (48%) reported by Mothafar. Also it is not in line with the report by Nyamakwere who reported a large majority (70%) of them had received training (Table 3).

Food Safety Practice of Meat Handlers at Home

The responses of meat handlers to questionnaires related to food safety practices and food hygiene were described below (Table 4). Out of the total respondents, it was found that about 60.1% of the respondents were not maintaining food safety practices. As per the survey result, 98.1% of respondents eat and drink at their work place and about 100% of meat handlers were not replacing their knives or sterilize them after each meat processing. Most of the respondents (89.4%), handled/processed meat when they were ill and 95% of them were not removing their personal stuffs such as rings, necklaces, watch etc. while processing meat. Meat handlers with open skin injury, gastroenteritis, and ear or throat diseases should not deal with any meat production (CAC, 2003). But current study shows that all of the meat handlers (100%) did not wash their hands after smoking, coughing, and sneezing (Table 4).

Food Safety Knowledge of Slaughter Personnel

The overall food safety knowledge of the respondents is summarized in Table 5. About 56.67% of respondents had unsatisfactory knowledge level as this is below the cut of point (≥ 68% accuracy). However, almost all slaughter personnel were aware of improper handling of meat as a causal factor for health hazards to consumers. Regular washing of hands before and during meat processing reduces the risk of contamination. On the other hand, the respondents had least knowledge about eating and drinking in the work place as a factor increasing the risk of meat contamination (22.2% correct answer). Only few of them also knew that microbes on the skin, nose and mouth of meat handlers are health hazards (44.4% correct answer). All of them knew that contaminated meat always has some change in color, odor or taste. Few of the respondents also knew that people with open skin injury, gastroenteritis, and ear or throat disease should not be allowed to handle meat (44.4% answer correctly) (Table 5).

Food Safety Attitude of Slaughter Personnel

Around 68.15% of respondents have good attitude of food safety. The slaughter personnel attitude towards hand washing before handling meat reduced the risk of contamination, taking regular training for better meat safety and hygienic practices, keeping working surfaces and utensil cleaning reduce the risk of illness, inspecting meat for freshness and wholesomeness is valuable and wearing protective clothing and shoes could help to improve work safety and hygienic practices (100%, 77.8%, 100%, 100% and 66.7%, respectively answers correctly). 55.6% of respondents have correct attitude on meat handling while having wounds, bruises or injuries on their hands. However, the respondents have little attitude towards sanitization of knives, using different knives for meat and offal, and sneezing or coughing without covering the nose or mouth to prevent cross-contamination (44.4% correct answer) whereas knives can be a source of food contamination and putting on hair cover on the head is a good practice (38.1% and11.1%, respectively correct answer) (Table 6).

Food Safety Practice of Slaughter Personnel

The assessment result of food safety practices by nine meat handlers interviewed in this research was depicted by Table 7. It was found that about 42.86% of the respondents did not maintain food safety practices. As per the survey result, 66.7% of respondents eat and drink at their work place. All of the meat handlers were not using gloves, aprons and hairnet did not replace knives or sterilize them after each meat processing as well as did not wash their hands after smoking, coughing and sneezing. About 55.6% of the respondents still handle meat when they get cuts or have wounds on their hands (Table 7).

Physical Observation of Gedo Slaughterhouse as Per FAO Standards

Gedo slaughterhouse had a slaughtering capacity of more than 16 heads of cattle per week. Ant-mortem and post-mortem inspections were not carried out to detect sick animals and other abnormalities. There was no water and no washing of animals prior to slaughter. Maximum fasting period practiced was not more than 10-12 hours prior to slaughtering. Therefore, the actual fasting period in the abattoir was not as per the standards of FAO. In this abattoir, there was no stunning box and animals were stunned being on the floor. All of the slaughtering processes were done manually on the floor by the slaughterhouse and none of the workers were using gloves during this survey. The slaughtering knife was not cleaned and sterilized at each carcass splitting process.

The loading and unloading of the meat were carried-out by daily laborers whose personal hygiene was very poor. The slaughterhouse workers did not wear aprons and hair covers. The hygiene of the workers were poor in terms of neatness. There was no restriction of workers movement from dirty to clean areas. Regarding the hygiene of slaughterhouse, the cleaning and sanitation of the slaughterhouse floor, walls and equipment were poor. Birds, rodents and insects freely move in and out of the abattoir. The slaughter slab has no toilet for its workers and ‘one man one job’ principle is not applied. Meat chilling and ventilation facilities are absent. In general, the slaughterhouse was not well constructed [20] (Table 8).

Source: FAO (2010) Table 8: Observation of the Gedo slaughterhouse in comparison with the FAO standards.