Abstract
Foodborne diseases are very frequent and can easily transmit from contaminated food and food handlers. Among the foodborne pathogens, strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogen and Clostridium are very important because of its presence in a wide range of foodstuffs. A total of 520 food samples were collected at Peshawar (50%) and Mardan (50%), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, from April 2016 to March 2017. Isolates were cultured and discriminated by Grain stain, followed by biochemical identification, disk diffusion assay was performed using antibacterial and antifungal agents. Out of 520, only 122 (23.46%) samples were positive for various types of bacterial and fungal pathogens. Gram-positive bacteria was the predominant (70.49%) followed by fungal pathogens (26.23%) and Gram-negative bacterial pathogens (3.27%) among the total positive samples. Prominent bacterial samples were Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus spp., Clostridium spp., Staphylococcus ,saprophytic, Listeria spp., Enterobacter spp., and Citrobacter spp., whereas four fungal pathogens were also identified in various food items. Among the fungal pathogens isolated were Aspergillus nigar (50%), Candida krusei (19%), Fusarium oxysporium (6%) and Mucor (25%). Antibiogram analysis reveals that Levofloxacin, Ceftriaxone Ciprofloxacin, Cefoxitin, Chloramphenicol, and Ceclor were more active against bacterial isolates. Fungal isolates had shown differential sensitivities toward Voriconazole. Local food markets of Peshawar and Mardan, KPK, Pakistan have more than 20% risk of foodborne pathogens. It is recommended that the general public should purchase neat and clean food and adopt mild processing techniques to make the food hygienic.