Prevalence of pathogenic bacteria in common salad vegetables of Dhaka Metropolis

Microbial quality of common salad vegetables (viz. carrot, cucumber, tomato and lettuce) collected from Dhaka metropolis was analysed to detect the presence of bacterial pathogens. The occurrence of huge numbers of fecal coliforms (1.0x10(4) - 4.09x10(6) cfu/g), Escherichia coli (1.0x10(4) - 5.0x10(8) cfu/g), Staphylococcus aureus (2.0x10(5) - 5.95x10(7) cfu/g), and Listeria spp. (1.5x10(6) - 6.5x10(7) cfu/g) were detected in all the tested samples. Interestingly, occurrence of viable but non-culturable (VBNC) bacteria was also noticed.