Martin Charles Likongwe^1,2 , Mangani Katundu² , Placid Mpeketula² , William Kasapila¹

1 Faculty of Food and Human Sciences, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi
2 Faculty of Science, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, P.O. Box 280, Zomba, Malawi
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2018, Vol. 8, No. 10   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2018.08.0010
Received: 22 Jan., 2018    Accepted: 09 Feb., 2018    Published: 02 Mar., 2018

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Likongwe M.C., Katundu M., Mpeketula P., and Kasapila W., 2018, Microbial quality assessment of open sun and solar tent dried Barbus paludinosus in Lake Chilwa Basin, International Journal of Marine Science, 8(10): 83-88 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2018.08.0010)

This study assessed the effects of two processing methods; open sun drying and solar tent drying on microbial quality of Barbus paludinosus, (straight fin barb locally known as Matemba), a species of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae that supports a significant fishery sector in Malawi. Barbus paludinosus (Matemba) were dried using open sun drying and solar tent driers. Samples were collected in newly bought polythene bags, well labelled and collected in cooler boxes transported ready for laboratory analysis. One gram (1 g) representative sample was obtained aseptically from the muscle of the fresh and dried straight fin barb (Matemba) samples. The samples were grounded and serial dilutions (10^-1 to 10^-4) of the homogenized samples were made using sterile distilled water. Fish samples were analysed for total plate count (TPC), E. coli counts and for pathogenic organisms (Salmonella) following the methods prescribed by (AOAC, 2000). Each analysis was carried out in triplicates. There were significant differences (P < 0.05), with respect to total viable bacterial counts between open sun dried and solar tent dried B. paludinosus (1.6 x 10⁶cfu/g, 1.4 x 10⁶cfu/g, respectively). Open sun dried B. paludinosus harboured significantly higher total viable counts as well as a higher population of Escherichia coli compared to solar tent dried Barbus paludinosus. Overall, bacterial populations were not above the marginally acceptable norms (1 x 10⁷ cfu/g) for both processing methods implying that the two methods can be deployable without public health concerns.

Solar tent drier; Open sun drying; Microbial analysis; Barbus paludinosus; Fish processing; Salmonella typhi