Prevalence of Listeria in Milk from Farm to Table
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Date
2015
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Springer Cham
Abstract
Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne pathogen of great concern for the food-producing companies. This Gram-positive bacterium is the causative agent of listeriosis, a highly fatal opportunistic food-borne infection. L. monocytogenes causes listeriosis in humans characterised by invasive and noninvasive illness, associated with high mortality (20–30 %) and has a propensity to cause severe problems, especially in pregnant women, neonates, the elderly and immuno-suppressed individuals. Thus, the presence of this pathogen in food is a major concern to the food industry and public health regulators. L. monocytogenes has been involved in numerous outbreaks of listeriosis occurring through consumption of milk and milk products. Hence, there is an urgent need from the dairy industry to understand the introduction of emerging food-borne pathogens in milk, and thus, in turn control and prevention of milk-borne epidemics and outbreaks.
A total of 767 milk samples from dairy cows were taken at different levels of collection and processing and were utilized for the isolation of Listeria. Overall, 10.56 % of the samples were positive for Listeria species and 37 isolates were designated as L. monocytogenes. Pulse-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used to discriminate the L. monocytogenes isolates into 5 ApaI and 4 AscI PFGE patterns (pulsotypes). The ability to carry out epidemiological investigations to determine the primary sources of bacterial contamination is therefore important to improve public health.
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NATURAL SCIENCES::Biology::Organism biology::Microbiology
Citation
Bioprospects of Coastal Eubacteria: Ecosystems of Goa, Ed. by Sunita Borkar. 2015; 263-287.