Microbiological evaluation of natural juices in the city of Benghazi

Abstract

Fruit juice contains essential nutrients, minerals, antioxidants, and vitamins for overall health. Products such as fruits and vegetables are normal part of the human diet and are consumed in large quantities in most civilizations. However, food borne diseases related to fruit and fruit products are increasing and became very serious problems in different parts of the world. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the bacteriological quality of types of fresh fruit juices available to the consumers in the city of Benghazi. The study was conducted in the end of summer period (September, October 2020 ―the first isolation‖) and (September, October 2021 ―the second isolation‖) for 128 randomly selected samples from sixteen cafes and restaurants in the city of Benghazi. This study was isolate and identify pathogenic bacteria that contaminate fresh juices, for two types of juice most popular among children and adults (strawberry juice and mango juice). All bacteria that were isolated in this study were identified by the appearance of the colonies and through biochemical tests, and some isolates were identified by phoenix 100. The results showed that the bacterial growth rate in the tested samples of fresh juices was (91.41%). This study has revealed that the most predominant pathogens isolated of the fresh juices (strawberry juice and mango juice) were Klebsiella pneumonia (36.21%), followed by fecal Escherichia coli (31.03%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (12.93%), Escherichia coli (7.76%), Enterobacter aerogenes (6.89%), Staphylococcus aureus (4.31%), Staphylococcus schleiferi sp. (1.72%). The study showed that there is a diversity in bacterial isolate between the first and second isolates. For the susceptibility of the isolated pathogens to the antimicrobial agents the result showed the effectiveness of antibiotics on Gram-negative pathogens were resistant to the following antibiotics including Amoxicillin and Amikacin, Clarithomycin, while other antibiotics were more effect. The antibiotics sensitivity for Gram-positive bacteria showed that the pathogen represented high resistant rate compare to Gram-negative isolates, where the bacterial isolates showed high resistance to the following including Ciprofloxacin, Clarithomycin, Imipenem, Amikacin, Amoxicillin, Oxacillin, Cefixime, Cephalexin