Prevalence and epidemiological distribution of selected foodborne pathogens in human and different environmental samples in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Bacterial Foodborne Pathogens (FBP) are the commonest cause of foodborne illness or foodborne diseases (FBD) worldwide. They contaminate food at any stages in the entire food chain, from farm to dining-table. Among these, the Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli (DEC), Non typhoidal Salmonella (NTS), Shigella spp. and Campylobacter spp. are responsible for a large proportion of illnesses, deaths; and, particularly, as causes of acute diarrheal diseases. Though existing studies indicate the problem may be severe in developing countries like Ethiopia, the evidence is commonly based on fragmented data from individual studies. A review of published and unpublished manuscripts was conducted to obtain information on major FBP and identify the gaps in tracking their source attributions at the human, animal and environmental interface. A total of 1753 articles were initially retrieved after restricting the study period to between January 2000 and July 2020. After the second screening, only 51 articles on the humans and 43 on the environmental sample based studies were included in this review. In the absence of subgroups, overall as well as human stool and environmental sample based pooled prevalence estimate of FBP were analyzed. Since, substantial heterogeneity is expected, we also performed a subgroup analyses for principal study variables to estimate pooled prevalence of FBP at different epidemiological settings in both sample sources. The overall random pooled prevalence estimate of FBP (Salmonella, pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli), Shigella and Campylobacter spp.) was 8%; 95% CI: 6.5–8.7, with statistically higher (P < 0.01) estimates in environmental samples (11%) than in human stool (6%). The subgroup analysis depicted that Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli contributed to 5.7% (95% CI: 4.7–6.8) and 11.6% (95% CI: 8.8–15.1) respectively, of the overall pooled prevalence estimates of FBD in Ethiopia. The result of meta-regression showed, administrative regional state, geographic area of the study, source of sample and categorized sample size all significantly contributed to the heterogeneity of Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli estimates. Besides, the multivariate meta- regression indicated the actual study year between 2011 and 2015 was significantly associated with the environmental sample-based prevalence estimates of these FBP. This systematic review and meta-analysis depicted FBP are important in Ethiopia though majority of the studies were conducted separately either in human, animal or environmental samples employing routine culture based diagnostic method. Thus, further FBD study at the human, animal and environmental interface employing advanced diagnostic methods is needed to investigate source attributions of FBD in one health approach. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s42522-021-00048-5.