en Food Safety and Hygiene Food Safety and Hygiene پژوهشي Original Article <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><b><span new="" times=""><font color="#000000">Background:</font></span></b><font color="#000000"> </font><span new="" times=""><font color="#000000">Raw (fresh) vegetables are an important ingredient of healthy diet. Many enteric bacterial, parasitic and viral pathogens could be transmitted by vegetables. Mazandaran province is located in northern Iran with a coastal area and extensive fields for vegetable cultivation. The current study is designed to evaluate the parasitic contamination of fresh vegetables. </font></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><font color="#000000"><b><span new="" times="">Methods: </span></b><span new="" times="">A total of 150 samples of fresh vegetables obtained from markets were examined for parasitic infections using standard methods.</span></font></span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><b><span new="" times=""><font color="#000000">Results:</font></span></b><font color="#000000"> </font><span new="" times=""><font color="#000000">Out of 104 samples (60.3%) were contaminated with parasites. Parsley and radish with prevalence rates of 90% (18/20) and 39.1% (9/23) were the most and least contaminated vegetables. <i>Free living larva</i></font><font color="#000000"> and </font><i><font color="#000000">Trichostrongylus</font></i><font color="#000000"> were the most and least common parasites in our results. </font></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal; unicode-bidi: embed; direction: ltr;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><font color="#000000"><b><span new="" times="">Conclusion: </span></b><span new="" times="">It can be concluded that parasitological contamination of raw vegetables may be a health threat to consumers of such products.</span></font></span></span></p> Prevalence, Parasite, Commonly used vegetables, Free living larva, Mazandaran provine 89 95 http://jhehp.zums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-88-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Bahman Rahimi Esboei bahman5164@yahoo.com 10031947532846009409 10031947532846009409 No Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Mehdi Sharif bahman5164@gmail.com 10031947532846009410 10031947532846009410 Yes Department of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Ahmad Daryani Daryani11@yahoo.com 10031947532846009411 10031947532846009411 No Molecular and cell biology Research Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, sari, Iran. Fatemeh Hosseini 10031947532846009412 10031947532846009412 No Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran. Abdol sattar Pagheh sattar2011@gmail.com 10031947532846009413 10031947532846009413 No Department of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Masoumeh Rahimi rahimimm@gmail.com 10031947532846009414 10031947532846009414 No School of Medicine, Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon Branch. Mohtaram Nasrolahi mnasrolah1934@yahoo.com 10031947532846009415 10031947532846009415 No Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.