Food products sold on public streets may be contaminated and cause foodborne illnesses, posing a serious challenge to food safety and public health. To assess the microbiological quality of artisanal sausages sold on the streets of Kisangani, twenty sausage samples ten samples per vendor type were collected from two types of vendors: street vendors and food stalls. Total aerobic mesophilic flora (TAMF), fecal coliforms (FC), Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella spp. were the primary microorganisms tested for. The microbiological quality of the samples was assessed based on quality standards. Antibiotic susceptibility testing of potentially pathogenic strains to commonly used antibiotics in Kisangani was conducted to study antibiotic resistance. Microbiological analyses revealed that the sausages were contaminated with spoilage flora (FMAT), indicators of fecal contamination (fecal coliforms), as well as bacteria responsible for foodborne illnesses that are potentially pathogenic (S. aureus and Salmonella sp.). This contamination depends on processing hygiene and is likely the result of the meat-to-sausage processing stage, prior to sale during the packaging of the sausages into bags, during sale while the product is on display, and due to improper storage conditions. Staff handling and selling the sausages, the equipment used, and the environment could likely be sources of contamination due to poor hygiene. It was found that sausages collected from street vendors were more contaminated than those collected from grocery stores (p=0.02). In accordance with quality standards, 100% of the samples collected from street vendors were classified as unfit for consumption, compared to 33.3% of the samples from grocery stores that were classified as unfit. With the exception of their susceptibility to ceftriaxone, the S. aureus and Salmonella sp. strains isolated from sausages were all found to be resistant to the other antibiotics tested. Finally, strict hygiene measures must be reinforced in the sector to improve food safety and public health for the population that consumes these sausages.

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae remains an important bacterial cause of lower respiratory tract infection. Although molecular methods are becoming more available, many hospital microbiology laboratories in Iraq still depend on conventional phenotypic identification. So, this workflow is still not old practice only; it is part of the daily diagnostic work. Objective: To assess the practical diagnostic value of conventional phenotypic methods for identifying S. pneumoniae from respiratory specimens in a routine clinical microbiology laboratory in Baghdad, Iraq. Methods: This prospective, single-center, laboratory-based observational study was performed at the Microbiology Laboratories of Baghdad Medical City from February to May 2026. Seventy-four adult patients with suspected lower respiratory tract infection were enrolled. Respiratory specimens were assessed by direct Gram stain, cultured on 5% sheep blood agar under CO₂-enriched incubation, and screened for alpha-hemolytic colonies. Presumptive isolates were further examined by Gram stain from culture, optochin susceptibility, bile solubility, capsule staining, biochemical identification, and slide agglutination serotyping. Results: Of 74 respiratory specimens, 52 (70.3%) showed neutrophil-predominant inflammatory smears, and 34 (45.9%) showed Gram-positive diplococci on direct microscopy. Bacterial growth was obtained from 58 specimens (78.4%). Thirty-six isolates showed presumptive alpha-hemolytic streptococcal morphology, and 30 were finally identified as S. pneumoniae. The pneumococcal identification rate was 40.5% among all specimens and 83.3% among presumptive alpha-hemolytic isolates. Optochin susceptibility and bile solubility provided the clearest separation between confirmed pneumococci and non-confirmed alpha-hemolytic isolates (p < 0.001 for both), with perfect internal agreement (kappa = 1.00). Serotype 6 was the most frequent serotype, detected in 11 isolates (36.7%), followed by serotype 3 in 4 isolates (13.3%). Conclusion: Conventional phenotypic methods can still provide useful identification of S. pneumoniae in routine Iraqi microbiology laboratories when applied as a combined systematic workflow, not as isolated single tests. Still, because no molecular reference method was used, the findings should be interpreted as pragmatic diagnostic utility rather than full analytical diagnostic accuracy.