| dc.description.abstract | Food safety is one of the leading issues for the agricultural industry both livestock health 
and the producers where bacteriological safety is the one. A cross-sectional study was 
conducted from October 2017-April 2019 to assess meat handling practice, community 
awareness on goat meat hygiene and prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus at Haramaya 
district and Harar town. Meat handling practice and community awareness on the hygiene 
were assessed using pre tested questioner. In addition, questionnaire survey was conducted 
to assess the hygienic practice during working time and possible risk factors regarding the 
contamination of meat at study location. All possible good hygienic practices during 
slaughtering and handling of meat and the working facility was emphasized in questioner. 
At abattoirs and retail shops, the carcasses and equipment were swab sampled. Samples 
were tested for Staphylococcus aureus. The isolates were tested against nine (9) 
antimicrobial agents using the disc diffusion method. A total of 326 carcasses swabs 
samples which comprised of 206 from the abattoirs and 120 at retail shops/butcher were 
aseptically sampled. Similarly, swab samples were collected from the working 
environmental both at abattoirs and retail shops randomly during sampling occasion. All 
samples was transported to College of Veterinary Medicine Microbiology Laboratory for 
immediate examination process for Staphylococcus aureus using bacteriological techniques. 
Of the total of 110, 36(65.5%) and 41(74.5%) was trained on hygienic practices in 
Haramaya and Harar city respectively. Additionally, 13(23.6%) and 26(47.3%) of retailer 
shop of Haramaya and Harar had a refrigerator for meat preservation, respectively. In the 
same manner among respondents interviewed on their attitude and practice of hygienic 
handling and consumption habit 39(70.9%) of Haramaya city and 31(56.4%) of Harar city 
respondents were not aware of risk of dirt on cloth and utensil cause harm to public. 
Similarly, 46(83.6%) and 39(70.9%) respondent practiced raw meat consumption from 
Haramaya and Harar respectively and 45(81.8%) and 40 (72.7%) had no idea of health risk 
of uncooked meat in respective of study location. The overall prevalence S. aureus was 69 
(21.2%) where it was18.9% and 25.0%in carcass and the handling environment, 
respectively. Of environmental samples, knife 7(23.3%) and cutting boards (26.7 %) were 
positive for S. aureus. Staphylococcus aureus were isolated from Haramaya and Harar 
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abattoirs 18 (17.5%) and 21(20.4%), respectively. Similarly, 17 (28.3 %) and 13 (21.7%) 
were isolated from Haramaya and Harar retail shops respectively. Almost in all the 
circumstance, no statistically significant difference (P>0.05) in the prevalence of 
Staphylococcus aureuswere observed.Of theS. aureus isolated, highest sensitivity towards 
Chloramphenicol 58(84%), Gentamycin 62(89.9%), Kanamycine 64 (92.8%) and 
Vancomycine 67(97.1%) were observed. In the counterpart, highly resistant pattern to 
Cefoxin37(53.6%), Ampicillin 48(69.6%), and Pencillin G 59(85.5%) were observed. Of 
total 69 isolated, 64 (92.7%) showed single to multiple of five drugs combination resistant 
where the majority (33.3%) showed three drugs resistant. Almost similar proportion of 
isolates showed resistant two drugs (20.3%) and four drugs (21.7%). One drug, two drugs, 
three drugs, four drugs and five drugs resistant was frequent for penicillin G (4.69%), PG AMP (10.94%), AMP-PG-CEF (18.75%), AMP-PG-CEF-ERY (7.81%) and AMP-PG GEN-ERY-CEF (3.13%), respectively. Presence of low quality of meat handling practice 
and community awareness on the meat hygiene was observed at Haramaya district and Harar 
town. This was supported by insignificant distribution of Staphylococcus aureusacross 
sampling locations and site. Therefore, community awareness creation on hygienic meat 
handling was recommended | en_US |