Surveillance of Food Poisoning Escherichia coli (STEC) in Ready-to-Eat Meat Products in Aswan, Egypt

Abstract

READY to eat meat was defined as case of meat being ready for immediate consumption. Food diseases of microbial origin are associated with serious health problems due to consumption of ready to eat meat and meat products in many places in the world. Conventional processing methods used in preparation, improper storage / conservation are the main factor contributing to food contamination. One of the common pathogenic bacteria that causes the food-borne diseases is E. coli .Some strains produce toxins that can lead to a major health problem such as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). E. coli O157:H7 is the most common strain of STEC, but there are many other strains of STEC as well. The current study was designed for screening of the ready to eat meat samples for E.coli, 120 Samples of (sausage,hamburger,minced beef and fried chicken 30 of each of them) through culture and biochemical tests and confirmation isolates by PCR. Depending upon culture, staining and biochemical tests E.coli isolates were detected in 12/30 (40%) samples of sausage, 4/30 (13%) of hamburger, 8/30 (27%) of minced beef and 1/30 (3%) of fried chicken with prevalence of all isolates were confirmed in 25/120 (20.83%) .According to PCR on positive isolates 10/12 (83.3%) in sausage, 4/4 (100%) in hamburger, 7/8 (87.5%) in minced beef and 1/1 (100%) in fried chicken. After serological identification isolates positive for both stx2 and eaeA were O26:H11 strain and isolates positive for eaeA only were O119:H6 strain.