The aim of this study was to determine total mercury and methyl mercury level in fishes (Deepsea Fish, Tuna, Billfish) and fishery products. A total of 101 fishes and 44 fishery products samples collected from commercial market in Gyeonggi-do. Total mercury were analysed by mercury analyzer and methyl mercury were analyzed by gas chromatography with electron capture detector. In the fishes, total mercury was detected in all samples and methylmercury was detected in 92 samples of them. The detection rate of methylmercury was 91.1% in fishes. The mean concentration (mg/kg) of total mercury and methylmercury were 1.968 ± 0.505/0.496 ± 0.057 for Billfish, 0.665 ± 0.091/0.252 ± 0.033 for Deep-sea Fish and 0.577 ± 0.085/0.218 ± 0.025 for Tuna, respectively. The Swordfish contains the highest level of total mercury (1.968 mg/kg) and methylmercury (0.496 mg/kg). In Mabled rockfish, the ratio of methylmercury’s contents about total mercury’s contents was the highest as 66.5%. In case of fishery products, frozens made of 100% of raw material contained the highest level of total mercury and methyl mercury. The weekly intake of total mercury and methylmercury was calculated in 4.72% and 5.24% of Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake (PTWI) respectively. This study showed that the weekly intake of methylmercury from Deep-sea Fish, Tuna and Billfish was less than the PTWI recommended by the Joint FAO/WHO expert committee on food additives.
This study was conducted to evaluate the microbiological hazard on nursery school children's hands and to investigate the reduction effect of hand washing education. A total of 59 nursery school children's hands were tested. The average number of total aerobic bacteria was 3.72 ± 0.38 log CFU/hand. Five children's hands(2 male and 3 female) were positive(14.3%) for the coliform bacteria. These results showed that hand washing education are required repetitively. Among the pathogenic bacteria tested in this study, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus were detected in 9(25.7%) and 16(45.7%) out of 35 their hands, respectively. Twelve out of sixteen B. cereus isolates(70.0%) produced enterotoxin. The results indicate that the hand hygiene of nursery school children needs to be improved. Comparing before and after hand washing in educated and non-educated group, the reduction effect of total aerobic bacteria on their hands was 0.42 and 0.60 log CFU/hand, respectively. The educated group showed 0.18 log CFU/hand higher reduction effect than non-educated group but microorganism did not eliminate perfectly. From the results, using a hand sanitizer after washing with soap and the continuous hand washing education are required to control the contaminated bacteria on nursery school children's hands.