Survey of verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli and faecal coliforms in beef carcasses destined for export at slaughterhouses in Brazil

Abstract

This study investigated the presence of generic and verotoxin-producing E. coli as well as enumerated faecal coliforms in 30 beef carcasses in different parts of the slaughter process (after skinning, washing and cooling) at each of three slaughterhouses of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Among the total number of carcasses examined (n = 90), 39 (43.3%) had generic E. coli. Among the 270 samples analysed, 25 (9.3%) were positive after skinning, 14 (5.2%) were positive after washing and nine (3.3%) were positive after cooling. The majority of isolates of E. coli was collected from samples after skinning, which is considered a critical point of the microbial contamination of carcasses. However, the highest concentration of faecal coliforms was found after the washing step. The cooling step proved to be important to reducing the amount of hygiene-indicator microorganisms. The E. coli isolates had no stx1 or stx2 genes associated with virulence.

A importância da seguridade e qualidade microbiológica e parasitológica em hortaliças

“…Citrobacter. A E. coli é uma cepa que possui origem fecal, além de ser a principal representante dos coliformes fecais (Bier, et al, 2017).…”

Impact of different marketing conditions on the bacteriological quality of meat products

“…The bacteriological quality of food can be established using microorganisms that indicate sanitary and hygienic conditions, such as the Coliform group, where Escherichia coli is the main representative (Bier et al, 2018;Fuka et al, 2021). Research, Society and Development, v. 11, n. 9, e37211931988, 2022 (CC BY 4.0) | ISSN 2525-3409 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v11i9.31988 3 Also, it is common to investigate the presence of Clostridium perfringens, a gram-positive anaerobic bacillus, considered an important pathogen responsible for numerous diseases in humans and animals and which is constantly associated with food poisoning and systemic and enteric diseases worldwide (Hailegebreal, 2017).…”