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Study of Meat Hygiene Practices among the Meat Retailers in Pokhara Metropolitan City

Binayak Banstola*, Dipendra Kumar Yadav, Rakshya Sharma

Introduction: Meat consumption is increasing day by day. Workers hygiene practice directly influence the meat hygiene and poor hygiene has huge public health implication due to possibilities of transmitting animal, human and environmental derived pathogens to the workers and consumers. The objective of the study is to assess the meat hygiene practices among the meat retailers of Pokhara Metropolitan city. Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out among 240 meat retailers in between July to October 2018 in Pokhara metropolitan city, Nepal. Proportionate simple random sampling method was used. Data were collected through face to face interview and observation using the semi-structured questionnaire and observation checklist. Chi-square test was performed to assess the association between meat hygiene practice and independent variables. Results: Majority (84.6%) of the participants had knowledge about personal protective equipment and almost all (99%) who have knowledge about personal protective equipment have habit of using it. All had habit of cleaning the shops/slaughter house. Similarly, all had practice of cleaning their hands, equipment's and clothes. More than half (52.5%) of the participants had good hygiene practice. Education and ethnicity of participants (P<0.05) were statistically significant with meat hygiene practice. Conclusion: The study concludes that hygiene practices of the meat retailers in Pokhara Metropolitan were not found to be satisfactory and practice of hygiene needs to be improved. Provision of training for improving the hygiene practice was discovered as the key recommendation of this study.