Incidence of Staphylococcus aureus and enterotoxin A gene in marketable milk and some milk products sold in New Valley governorate, Egypt.

Sotohy, Sotohy A.; Emam, Shimaa M.; Ewida, Rania M.

doi:10.21608/nvvj.2022.232000

Incidence of Staphylococcus aureus and enterotoxin A gene in marketable milk and some milk products sold in New Valley governorate, Egypt.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Animal and Environmental Hygiene, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assuit University, Assuit 71526, Egypt

² Department of Food Hygiene (Milk Hygiene), Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, New Valley University, New valley, 72511, Egypt

10.21608/nvvj.2022.232000

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is one of the most important microorganisms causing foodborne outbreaks worldwide. the present work was planned to study the occurrence, count, and identification of S. aureus and investigation of the obtained isolates for presence of enterotoxin A encoding gene (sea) in milk and some milk products in New Valley Governorate, Egypt. A total of 150 random samples of marketable milk and some milk products including: soft cheeses (Kareish, Domiati) &ice cream (30 for each) were collected from different localities in New Valley Governorate. S. aureus occurred in 11.6, 10, 3.3 and10% for marketable milk, kariesh cheese, domiati cheese and ice cream, respectively. The presence of enterotoxin sea gene was identified in 4(57%) and 2 (50%) in milk and soft cheese, respectively, while none of the isolates obtained from ice cream samples harbored this gene. The investigation revealed that the examined milk samples and its products were contaminated with S. aureus with average counts of 2.8×108, 7.5×105, 7.6×106 and 1.7×107 for milk, Kariesh cheese, Domiati cheese and ice cream samples, respectively. In conclusion, the presence of S. aureus in milk and some milk products indicated that the examined samples were of low quality which reflect unhygienic measures during milking, processing, storage, and distribution chain.

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