From home-made oral rehydration solutions (ORS), the identified
bacterial strains from a total of 1880 bacterial isolates (1010 from
granulated sugar and 870 from table salt) using the conventional
taxonomic tools were Bacillus cereus var. mycoides (0.57%),
Bacillus subtilis (2.28%), Citrobacter sp. (1.07%),
Clostridium perfringes (14.75%), Enterobacter aerogenes
(6.13%), Escherichia coli (7.44%), Klebsiella pneumoniae
(10.0%), Morganella morganii (0.78%), Proteus
mirabilis (6.74%), P. vulgaris (1.68%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa
(4.67%), Salmonella entrica serovar Typhi (3.89%),
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (0.99%), Shigella dysentariae
(11.0%), Staphylococcus aureus (11.98%) and Vibrio cholerae
(2.57%). The isolated fungal species from the table salt and
granulated sugar samples were Aspergillus flavus , Aspergillus
fumigatus , Aspergillus niger , Botryiodiplodia
sp., Candida sp. and Scopulariopsis sp. Home-made
ORS may serve as a means of transmitting gastroenteritis/diarrhoea and
other infectious microbial agents in developing countries like Nigeri