Microbial Contamination in Raw Vegetables

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Date
2011-01-24
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Bulletin of the Department of Medical Sciences - วารสารกรมวิทยาศาสตร์การแพทย์
Abstract
There have been reported cases of food poisoning due to consumption of fresh vegetables including warning from some imported countries for the existence of microbial contamination in Thai fresh vegetables. Therefore, during July to September 2008, ninety-seven samples of raw vegetables from 8 fresh markets and 4 supermarkets in Bangkok and Nonthaburi were examined for microbial contamination, both sanitary index microorganisms and food-borne pathogens. The results showed that the sanitary index microorganisms, coliforms found more than 500 MPN per gram and Escherichia coli found more than 10 MPN per gram were detected in 88 samples (90.7%) and 44 samples (45.4%), respectively.  The food-borne pathogenic bacteria comprising Salmonella spp., Vibrio cholerae non O1/ non O 139, Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria spp. (the group of Listeria related to L. monocytogenes) were also detected in 16, 14, 2, and 47 samples or 16.5, 14.4, 2.1, and 48.4 percent respectively whereas other pathogenic bacteria including Shigella spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, were not detected in all samples. The statistical evaluation for the relation between microbial  contamination and sources fresh vegetable samples was demonstrated that the number of positive samples for E.coli, Listeria spp., and other food-borne pathogenic bacteria collected from supermarkets  were significantly different from fresh markets (p
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Bulletin of the Department of Medical Sciences - วารสารกรมวิทยาศาสตร์การแพทย์; Vol. 52 No. 1-2 January - June 2010; 30-39