Anaerobic spore formers, especially Clostridium perfringens, represent one of the most prevalent bacterial food poisoning outbreaks
which mostly related to consumption of contaminated meat and meat products.Therefore, a total of 125 random raw and half cooked
chicken meat samples represented by (breast, thigh, nuggets, panée and frankfurter “25 of each”) were collected from various retail
stores and supermarkets in Qualyubia governorate, Egypt. Results illustrated that, raw thigh samples were the most contaminated
with anaerobic bacterial countsin incidence of 84%. The identified strains were C. perfringens, C. sporogenes, C. bifermenants, C. butyricum
and C. sordelli in 21.6, 16, 8, 3.2 and 3.2%, respectively.Regarding to the incidence of vegetative and spore of C. perfringens
were 24, 32, 20, 16, 16% and 16, 20, 16, 8, 8% in examined raw breast, raw thigh, nuggets, panée and frankfurter, respectively.33.3%
of isolates were lecithinase positive strains andtypedasC. perfringens type A(6.4%), type D (0.8%); in absence of neither type B nor D.
Experimental heat resistant C. perfringensspores were six heat resistant strains; where all isolates were of type A. The high incidence
of these food poisoning microorganisms in chicken meat may indicate defects insanitary conditions and handling in processing plant. |
