As a developing nation and the most populous nation in Africa, Nigeria has enormous challenges connected with food safety culture. To produce and provide safe, secure and nutritious food, consumers and food businesses must abide by a set of shared values known as food safety culture. In Nigeria, food safety culture is a complex subject due to Nigeria’s heterogeneous and diverse nature, as demonstrated by its over 250 ethnic groups. As Nigeria becomes more urbanized and incomes continue to fluctuate at robust rates, few Nigerians are conscious of food safety issues. In addition, oversight from government regulators around food safety require improvement. Public engagement in food safety issues has not witnessed a promising trajectory in recent years. In this article, we provide a review of the food safety culture in Nigeria and its role and influence on various cases of food safety issues in Nigeria. Of interest to this paper are studies exploring consumer and food handler perceptions and behavior regarding food safety. In addition, keen attention is devoted to areas that are in need of additional research to help address practical and on-the-ground challenges associated with Nigeria’s food safety practices. This article suggests that improving food safety culture in Nigeria requires both applying the best management and communication approaches in different regions and understanding the local food safety practices.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now considered one of the greatest global health threats. This is further compounded by a lack of new antibiotics in development. Antimicrobial stewardship programmes can improve and optimize the use of antibiotics, thereby increasing the cure rates of antibiotic treatment and decreasing the problem of AMR. In addition, diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardships in the pathology laboratories are useful tools to guide clinicians on patient treatment and to stop the inappropriate use of antibiotics in empirical treatment or narrow antibiotics. Medical Laboratory Scientists are at the forefront of performing antibiotics susceptibility testing in pathology laboratories, thereby helping clinicians to select the appropriate antibiotics for patients suffering from bacterial infections. Methods: This cross-sectional study surveyed personal antimicrobial usage, the knowledge and awareness on AMR, and antimicrobial stewardship, as well as barriers to antimicrobial susceptibility testing among medical laboratory scientists in Nigeria using pre-tested and validated questionnaires administered online. The raw data were summarized and exported in Microsoft Excel and further analyzed using IBM SPSS version 26. Results: Most of the respondents were males (72%) and 25–35 years old (60%). In addition, the BMLS degree was the highest education qualification most of the respondents (70%) achieved. Of the 59.2% of the respondents involved in antibiotics susceptibility testing, the disc diffusion method was the most commonly used (67.2%), followed by PCR/Genome-based detection (5.2%). Only a small percentage of respondents used the E-test (3.4%). The high cost of testing, inadequate laboratory infrastructure, and a lack of skilled personnel are the major barriers to performing antibiotics susceptibility testing. A higher proportion of a good AMR knowledge level was observed in male respondents (75%) than females (42.9%). The knowledge level was associated with the respondent’s gender (p = 0.048), while respondents with a master’s degree were more likely to possess a good knowledge level of AMR (OR: 1.69; 95% CI: 0.33, 8.61). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that Nigerian medical laboratory scientists had moderate awareness of AMR and antibiotic stewardship. It is necessary to increase investments in laboratory infrastructure and manpower training, as well as set up an antimicrobial stewardship programme to ensure widespread antibiotics susceptibility testing in hospitals, thereby decreasing empirical treatment and the misuse of antibiotics.

Sputum induction is a technique that covers the induction and the subsequent processing of the expectorate primarily for the analysis of cells and different inflammatory biomarkers present in the airways to further understand the pathophysiology of different inflammatory respiratory disorders such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as well as the diagnosis of lung diseases such as lung cancer, tuberculosis, and Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. It is a non-invasive, safe, cost-effective, and reliable technique reported to exhibit a high success rate. However, due to being technically demanding and time-consuming and having the need of employing trained staff, this technique is only used in restricted research centres and in limited centres of clinical use. When the sputum is collected after induction, the primary goal is to obtain a differential cell count and evaluate the molecular biomarkers of airway inflammation such as eosinophil cationic protein, eosinophil-derived neurotoxin, major basic protein, tryptase, cytokine production [e.g., interleukin (IL)-5], albumin, and fibrinogen. In addition, cytospins from the processed sputum are used for immunocytochemical staining of cellular products such as EG-2 reactive protein, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, tumour necrosis factor alpha, and IL-8 that play significant roles in understanding the pathophysiology of inflammatory airway diseases. Nowadays, this technique can be further used by performing an additional analysis such as flow cytometry and in situ hybridisation on the sputum supernatant to investigate more the immune response and pathophysiological process of such various respiratory diseases. In addition, the application of sputum fluid phase to assess the biomarkers could be used more routinely in pathological laboratories for diagnosing lung cancer, COPD, and asthma as well as for monitoring lung cancer progression and asthma and COPD treatment, allowing for early detection and a better treatment provided by the clinicians.

Klebsiella pneumoniae is an opportunistic Gram-negative bacterium in the Enterobacteriaceae family associated with a wide range of diseases, such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, meningitis and urinary tract infections. Infections caused by drug-resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae pose a significant threat to the effectiveness of conventional antibiotics. Hence, this has led to the need to explore alternative antimicrobial therapies, especially natural products derived from plant sources. This study assessed the phytochemical composition and antibacterial properties and performed a molecular docking analysis of Henna leaves (Lawsonia inermis L.) extracts on strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae. Crude ethanol and methanol extracts of L. inermis L. were prepared at different concentrations (25, 50, 75 and 100 mg/mL) and tested on extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs)-producing strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae. Phytocompounds were identified using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and further subjected to virtual ligands screening with DataWarrior (v05.02.01) and a molecular docking analysis using AutoDock4.2 (v4.2.6). The active compounds of L. inermis L. were determined by the docking analysis, including phytochemical, physicochemical, pharmacokinetics and docking score. The GC-MS analysis identified 27 phytoconstituents, including ethyl acetate, sclareol, 2-[1,2-dihydroxyethyl]-9-[β-d-ribofuranosyl] hypoxanthine, α-bisabolol and 2-Isopropyl-5-methylcyclohexyl 3-(1-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-oxobutyl)-coumarin-4-yl carbonate. The 27 compounds were then screened for their physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties. The results revealed that the methanol extracts at 100 mg/mL showed significantly higher (p < 0.05) zones of inhibition (13.7 ± 1.2 mm), while the ethanol extracts at 50 mg/mL were significantly lower (6.3 ± 0.6 mm) compared to all the other treatments. The docking analysis revealed that out of the 27 compounds identified, only twelve (12) compounds have a drug-likeness activity. The 12 compounds were further subjected to docking analysis to determine the binding energies with the CTX-M protein of Klebsiella pneumoniae. Only one compound [CID_440869; (2-[1,2-dihydroxyethyl]-9-[β-d-ribofuranosyl] hypoxanthine)] had the best binding energy of −9.76 kcal/mol; hence, it can be considered a potentially suitable treatment for infections caused by ESBLs-producing strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae. This study has demonstrated that L. inermis L. extracts have antibacterial effects. Further research could explore the potential antimicrobial applications of L. inermis L. extracts to many bacterial strains.

Food fraud presents a growing threat globally, impacting consumer health; food safety; and brand credibility. The key motivation for food fraud is usually an economic or financial advantage. Economically motivated food fraud (EMA) is the illegal deception, deliberate and intentional substitution or addition of a substance in a food product, which may pose a possible health risk to unsuspecting consumers. This study aims to assess the awareness and attitudes of Nigerian consumers towards food authenticity and the regulatory measures in place to combat food adulteration. The study comprised 2160 respondents who were asked about their knowledge of high-profile food fraud incidents, frequently adulterated products, and their opinions of the effects of food fraud and preventative measures. The findings of this study revealed that more than a third of respondents were unfamiliar with the term “food fraud”. However, they were aware of local high-profile cases, such as “plastic rice” and counterfeit dairy products. Most participants relied on point-of-sale information for assessing food authenticity, with street vendors being viewed as potential sources of food adulteration. The study also found that more than half of the respondents were concerned about food fraud regardless of whether it involved local or imported products. A wide variety of food items were identified as prone to adulteration or fraudulent activity. These included alcoholic drinks, dairy products, honey, rice, and tomato paste, amongst others. These findings highlight the need for improved consumer awareness, regulatory effectiveness, and remediation efforts to combat food fraud in Nigeria.