Foodborne Pathogens in Street-Vended Food in India: A Narrative Review of Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Public Health Implications

Abstract

Background: Street food is a major source of affordable nutrition and informal-sector employment in urban and semi-urban India, but the sector's largely unregulated water supply, storage, and hygiene infrastructure has repeatedly been linked to microbial contamination and foodborne illness. Objective: To synthesize the peer-reviewed and institutional evidence on the prevalence of key foodborne pathogens in Indian street-vended food, the vendor-level and environmental factors driving contamination, and the public health, economic and antimicrobial-resistance (AMR) implications, and to identify evidence-based directions for policy and future research. Methods: A structured narrative review was conducted using Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science and Google Scholar, supplemented by institutional sources (FSSAI, IDSP/NCDC, ICMR, WHO). Peer-reviewed studies, systematic reviews and government/WHO reports addressing street-vended food safety in India (or directly comparable South Asian contexts) published between 2014 and 2025 were screened for relevance and synthesized thematically. Findings: Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus are consistently the most frequently reported contaminants of Indian street food, with Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Bacillus cereus and Vibrio cholerae also documented in specific food categories and regions. Untreated water, poor hand hygiene, ambient-temperature storage of pre-cooked items, and low uptake of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licensing are recurring risk factors. Vendor knowledge-attitude-practice surveys show only partial translation of food-safety awareness into consistent hygienic behaviour, and national surveillance of street-food-linked outbreaks remains fragmented across agencies. Conclusion: Addressing microbial contamination of Indian street food requires coordinated investment in water and sanitation infrastructure, mandatory vendor training and licensing, strengthened multi-agency surveillance, and further nationally representative, methodologically standardized research to close current evidence gaps.