Prevalence of Salmonella spp. in Packed and Unpacked Red Meat and Chicken in South of Tehran

BACKGROUND Despite of the advances in infectious diseases prevention and food technology, food-borne diseases are considered major problems in developed and developing countries. Meat plays a key role in transferring zoonotic diseases to human. OBJECTIVES This study was conducted in south of Tehran, Iran, to investigate the prevalence rate of Salmonella spp. in packed and unpacked red meat and chicken. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 379 packed and unpacked samples including 189 red meat and 190 chicken samples were collected randomly. From each sample, 25 g was separated and treated with 225 mL of buffered peptone water, homogenized and incubated at 37°C for 24 hours. Samples were enriched using Rappaport-Vassiliadis broth and then streaked onto Hektoen enteric agar. RESULTS Totally, 86 out of 190 chicken and 38 out of 189 red meat samples were contaminated with Salmonella spp. The most isolated serotypes were Salmonella thompson (67.7%), S. heaardt (6.5%), S. enteritidis (4.8%), and S. veyle (4%), respectively. In general, the rate of chicken contamination was higher than meat, as 43.3% of packed and 46% of unpacked chicken samples were contaminated. CONCLUSIONS These results confirmed the pervious findings, stating that proper packaging of meat products can effectively decreases the rate of microbial contaminations.