Detection of E. coli O157 and Salmonella species in some raw chicken meat cuts in Ismailia province, Egypt

One hundred random fresh raw chicken breast and thigh samples (50 of each) were collected from an automatic poultry dressing plant in Ismailia city, Egypt for bacteriological and genetic detection of E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella species. Out of the examined 100 samples, only 4 (4%) samples were contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, while non-O157 E. coli isolates represented 11% of E. coli isolates which were serotyped as O114:H21, O127:H6, O126 and O26 with incidence of 2, 4, 3, and 2% of the examined samples, respectively. On the other side, Salmonellae were detected in 11 samples (11%) and serologically identified as S. Typhi, S. Typhimurium and S. Enteritidis with the incidence of 1, 3, and 7%, respectively. Further, PCR investigation indicated that fliC gene was detected in all 4 isolates of E. coli O157 with incidence of 100%; while, fimA gene in 5 Salmonella isolates was detected in 4 (80%) of such examined isolates. Accordingly, it is obvious that raw chicken meat cuts were loaded with pathogenic foodborne bacteria exposing consumers to the high risk of food poisoning. Moreover, the results cleared that bacteriological traditional methods for detection of bacteria contaminating foods are labor-intensive and time-consuming but PCR are more rapid and highly sensitive for identification of foodborne pathogens.