Abstract

Vegetables are major components of human diet but may act as vehicles for pathogens. The use of dung in producing vegetables is one factor that influences geohelminths contamination of vegetables. The study focused on geohelminths contamination of carrots (Daurus carota), lettuce (Lactuva sativa), spinach (Spina ciaoleracea), cabbage (Brassi caoleracea), and cucumber (Cucumis sativus) sourced from four markets (Central, Kofar Marusa, Yarkutungu and Chake) and four irrigation sites (Kofar Marusa, Kofar Durbi, Dan Lawal, and Kofar Sauri) in Katsina metropolis, Nigeria. The vegetables were examined for geohelminths using the sedimentation method and identified using colored Atlas of parasitology. Chi-square statistic tested associations between geohelminth contamination and sources and types of vegetables at 95% CI. From 540 vegetables examined, 387 were geohelminths contaminated, giving a prevalence of 71.7%. However, 206 (68.7%) of 300 market samples were contaminated as well as 181 (75.4%) of 240 samples from irrigated sites (P = 0.084). Furthermore, geohelminth contamination was highest in the Kofar Marusa irrigated site while the Kofar Marusa market had the least (66.7%), with no significant association (P = 0.677). The percentage prevalence of contaminated vegetables with eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworm, Trichuris trichiura and larvae of Strongyloides stercoralis was 37.4, 25.2, 6.3 and 2.8%, respectively, indicating potential risk for geohelminth parasites transmission through edible raw vegetables in Katsina where spinach had the highest geohelminths contamination rate (80%), followed by lettuce (75.7%), cabbage (70.0%), carrots (51.7% and cucumber with 56.7% (P=0.003). The study has added more knowledge on the geohelminth contamination of vegetables in Northwest Nigeria.

Key words: Geohelminths, vegetables, contamination, markets, irrigation sites.