DETECTION OF STAPHYLOCOCCI IN MILK SAMPLES IN RETAILS IN KAFR ELSHEIKH GOVERNORATE, EGYPT

Rana Tawfik Abd El-Rahman, Dalia Talat, Treza Mourice Azer and Madiha Salah Ibrahim*

ABSTRACT

The present work was undertaken to study the prevalence, antimicrobial susceptibility and molecular characterization of Staphylococcus aureus in milk samples in retails in Kafr Elsheikh governorate, Egypt. A total of 150 raw milk samples were examined, 66 Staphylococcus isolates were detected (44%). The incidence of S. aureus among a total of 66 samples was 34 isolates with a percentage of 51.51%. The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of recovered S. aureus isolates revealed that the highest resistance was exhibited against neomycin; 100% and kanamycin; 97.1%. On the other hand, the most effective drugs were oxacillin, ciprofloxacin and cephalotin with bacterial resistance percentages of 91.2%, 82.3% and 79.4%, respectively. PCR was applied to detect mec A gene. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was detected in 40% of chosen S. aureus isolates. Multiplex PCR for Staphylococcal enterotoxin genes (Sea, Seb, Sec, Sed) revealed that genes coding core Sea and Sec were more frequent in a percent of 40% of tested isolates, whereas Seb was 20% and Sed was completely absent. This study indicated that the quality of raw milk is low especially if introduced in non-heat-treated milk products so, more efforts are required to maintain consumer health.

Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, Antimicrobial resistance, MRSA, mecA, Staphylococcal enterotoxin.