Question

Describe the different ways by which the housefly contaminates our food.

Answer 1

The different ways by which housefly contaminates food are:

• Pouring saliva out - Food gets moist when housefly regurgitates on food or pours its saliva as a result pathogens get discharged on them causing the food to get contaminated.
• Hairy body and legs pick up filth - Spiny or hairy legs and body tend to pick up dirt containing germs from germ-infested places such as faecal matter, rotten material, infected wound. When these carriers/flies rest on our food, they rub their legs continuously dropping the particles of dirt on the food, causing it to get contaminated.
  
• Excreta - It deposits its excreta while it feeds, thus contaminating human food.
  
• Direct transmission of germs - Houseflies directly transmit pathogens in some cases. In case of eye disease trachoma, pathogens are transmitted from an infected person to a healthy person, when a fly settled on an infected eye of a person sits on the eyes of a healthy person.