Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Department of Food Hygiene and Control

Chicken meat products are one of the most popular primary food products throughout the world due to the relative ease of its production. Chicken meat is a very good source of proteins, numerous of vitamins (especially B12) and minerals. However, Chicken products can be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus.Cross contamination occurs during the handling of raw meat, especially chicken meat, because of the presence of more liquid in raw meat than cooked meat. As consumers become more interested in food safety and the consumption of chicken products increase, contamination of those bacteria is a major concern of poultry related industries, consumers, and government agencies such as US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service. During this study 100 different samples of chicken fillet, deboned thigh, wing, mechanically deboned meat (MDM) and chicken burger (20 each) were collected from different markets in Cairo governorate and investigated for their S. aureus count and ability of the isolated strains to produce enterotoxins using conventional plating and isolation technique as well as using SET-RPLA toxin detection kit. Results revealed that mean values of S. aureus count in all samples were unacceptable and exceeded the permissible limits described by ESS2910 / 2005. The incidence of S. aureus isolated from chicken fillet, chicken deboned thigh, chicken wings, MDM and chicken burger were 15%, 20%, 10%, 25%, and 30% respectively.S. aureus isolated from MDM exhibited staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) production of three different types SEA,SEC and SED.Meanwhile,S. aureus isolated from chicken burger produced only SEA and SEC enterotoxins

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