DETECTION OF SALMONELLA SPP AND PATHOGENIC E. COLI IN THE STREET VENDED FRESH BEEF AND OFFALS

📄 Project Abstract

Bacterial pathogens are of the utmost concern to consumers about the protection of meat. A wide variety of pre-slaughter, post-slaughter and processing methods are responsible for human pathogenic contamination of raw meat products. Pathogenic Escherichia coli is a common pathogen associated with meat, with Shiga-toxin or verocytoxin producing E. coli O157 the most common member of a group of pathogenic strains. In this study, E. coli O157 was isolated using sorbitol containing MacConkey agar (SMAC medium) while Salmonella-Shigella (SS) agar were used for the isolation Salmonella species. The highest counts of 6.1 log10 CFU/g and 6.3 Log10 CFU/g for SMAC were found in Offals and meat respectively. Salmonella species were found in 25 g of offals which is contrary to meat safety standards. Thus, such microorganisms pose a potential danger to humans, particularly from the consumption of these products, which may lead to other diseases such as haemorrhagic colitis (HC) or haemolytic uremic...