Study On Enterococci And Bacillus Cereus isolated from minced meat

Abstract

This is a descriptive study to determine the prevalence of multipledrug resistant Enterococci, and the possible occurrence of vancomycin resistant Enterococci (VRE) in raw minced beef samples, human stool and in chicken droppings. Moreover, the study aimed to explore the possible contamination of minced meat with enterotoxigenic Bacillus cereus. One hundred and eighty raw minced beef samples, thirty human stool specimens and thirty chicken droppings specimens were bacteriologically investigated for the presence enterococci. The isolation rate of enterococci in beef samples was 61%, 73% for stool specimens and (53%) for chicken droppings. The isolates were identified by conventional cultural and biochemical methods. The most frequent enterococci isolated from beef samples was Enterococci faecalis, while E. faecium was the predominant isolates from stool and chicken droppings. All isolated enterococci were tested for antibiotic sensitivity by disk diffusion method. Almost, all isolates had shown resistance to both cloxacillin and Penicillin, in addition all isolates from chicken droppings and human stools were found to be resistant or intermediately resistant to Meat isolates were found to be susceptible to Tetracycline gentamycin. and ampicillin while stool isolates were found to be susceptible to ampicillin and chloramphenicol. The resistance to vancomycin in all isolates was intermediate. Fifty raw beef samples were collected from different butcher shops in Omdurman area. Ten Bacillus cereus (20%) were isolated. Using the rabbit ileal loop test, 80% of B. cereus isolates were found to be interotoxigenic. In conclusion, our study documented that Enterococci commonly contaminate meat, and their antibiotic sensitivity profile demonstrated high resistance level to numerous antibiotics. Also this work reported high IV contamination rate of meat with B. cereus, and many isolates of which proved to be enterotoxigenic.