Prevalence of parasitic contamination of raw vegetables in Khorramabad, Iran

- This is the first report on parasitic contamination of vegetables in Khoramabad, Iran.
- Five pathogenic and four nonpathogenic parasites were found in contaminated vegetables.
- Potentially pathogenic parasites such as Ascaris lumbricoides and Giardia spp. were isolated from vegetables.
- The 79% contamination rate in this study is high compared to other studies.
- The rate of contamination was significantly higher in spring than the winter.

It is well known that raw vegetable was considered as an agent for transmission of intestinal parasite and fresh vegetables have an important role in human nutrition. Therefore, the present study was designed to detect the parasite contamination in many common raw vegetables in Khorramabad, Iran. A total of 550 fresh vegetable samples which belonged to spring (275) and winter (275) were randomly collected. All samples were examined according to standard methods for detection of protozoan cyst, oocysts, helminth eggs as well as larva. The findings indicated 52.7% positive for intestinal parasites and the highest contaminated sample was leek 80% in spring and 43.6% in winter. However, the least contaminated samples were green onion (34.5%) in spring and garden cress (10.9%) in winter. Chi-square test indicated the significant difference between contamination in spring when compared to winter (p < 0.002). Our data demonstrated importance of raw vegetables in transmission of some intestinal parasites and highlight the role of raw vegetables in threatening public health.