The faecial contamination of silver cyprinid (rastrineobola argentea) sundried on nets laid on grass at Katosi landing site Mukono district

Abstract

Rastrineobola argentea, a small pelagic fish known as the Silver cyprinid and commonly referred to as ‘Mukene’ ranks among the top three species landed from Lake Victoria. It is majorly preserved by sun drying on surfaces such as net- on grass, net- on ground and ranks with the commonly used being net-on grass. Studies show that this particular surface has higher microbial loads thus poses a high risk of contaminating the sun dried fish. This study evaluated whether the location of the nets on grass had a significant effect on the level of fecal contamination on the sun dried fish. Three net locations were evaluated i.e. shore, mid-point and upland at Katosi LS. Wet and dry samples were collected on randomly selected nets at the three different net locations. Dry samples were collected after 8 hours on the same nets from which the wet samples were initially collected at the three different nets locations. The samples were analyzed for fecal contamination by examining for Escherichia coli and Enterococci fecal indicators. The findings showed that generally the location of nets laid on grass had a less significant effect on the level of fecal contamination. However this was greatly influenced by the kind of fecal indicator species examined because the level of fecal contamination with Enterococci on sundried Silver cyprinid significantly varied at the three different locations. This showed a contradiction from the findings found in examining the dry samples for E.coli because the results indicated the level of contamination was significantly the same at the three net locations. Previous studies indicate that Enterococci is not purely found in human and animal fecal matter but can also be found on plants and in soil with evidences that Enterococci cells are capable of replicating in extra-enteric environments such as beach sands. Further studies to eliminate the possibility of human fecal contamination from the other environmental sources of the organisms which was not determined in this study is thus required.