A scoping review of the prevalence of antimicrobials-resistance pathogens and signatures in ready-to-eat street foods in Africa: Implications for public health

Hope ONOHUEAN ^1* Haron OLOT ¹ Fanny Eseohe Onohuean ¹ Sarad Pawar Naik Bukke ¹ Oluwamayowa S Akinsuyi ² Ayomikun Kade ³

• ¹ Kampala International University Western Campus, Kampala, Uganda
• ² University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States
• ³ University of Warwick, Coventry, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Background and objective: Food hygiene has received little attention despite being crucial for individual and societal productivity and health. Ready-to-eat (RTE) food tainted with antibioticresistant pathogenic bacteria poses a serious risk to public health. This scoping review aims to create a database for epidemiological prevalence of RTE food-contaminated pathogens resistant to antimicrobial drugs and resistance genes in Africa.Using an electronic database such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), handpicked from references, pre-reviewed published articles were retrieved and analyzed according to the PRISMA-ScR guideline.Results: the findings indicate forty previewed published articles qualified for meta-synthesis in the scoping review with a population/cases 11653/5338 (45.80%). The most significantly reported RTE foods were meat or beef/beef-soup, chicken or poultry products, salads, vegetable-salads, and sandwich haboring pathogenic isolates such as E. coli, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus. The antibiotic susceptibility pattern depicts that 45 antibiotics have been used to manage pathogenic bacteria infections following the CLSI protocols. Also, they were associated with the resistance genes such as aac3II, aac3IV, aac6Ibcr, aad7, aadA, blaCTXM, blaSHV, blaTEM, catA1, cmlA, dfrA, ermC, ermT, intI1, intI2, IpaH, mecA, mecC, mphC, oxqAB, qnrA, qnrS, strA, strB, sul1, sul2, temB, tetA, tetB, tetK and tetM. In addition, only fifteen studies gained or received funding or financial support.These findings from several researchers indicate that RTE street foods in African and resource-limited nations harbour enteric pathogens and are a significant concern to the public health system and reservoir of the spread of antibiotic resistance. This underscores the necessity of implementing effective control techniques to mitigate difficulties and limit the spread of resistant bacterial isolates in RTE foods. The antimicrobial resistance surveillance system in the region is a significant concern. Notably, Africa needs to strengthen the national and international regulatory bodies and one health surveillance system on antimicrobial resistance, particularly among developing nations.