Bacteriological quality and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of public health-significant bacteria in raw chevon from Tripura

A study was undertaken to investigate the bacterial contamination and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern in organisms isolated from chevon in Tripura. Atotal of 120 raw randomly cut muscle pieces of chevon samples of Black Bengal goats, 120 water samples used for washing the carcasses and butchers’ hands and swab samples from cutting knife (80), butchers’ hands (80) and chevon cutting wood surface (80) were collected from 80 retail shops of Tripura in the year 2015–2016. The samples (480) were subjected to total viable count (TVC), total coliform count (TCC), total staphylococcus count (TSC), isolation and identification of public health significance organisms and antibiogram of the isolated microbes. The overall mean TVC, TCC and TSC in chevon samples were 6.84±0.42, 4.97±0.23 and 3.67±.27₁₀ log cfu/g, respectively. The water samples had mean values for TVC, TCC and TSC as 9.78±0.56, 8.04±0.47 and 5.28±0.43 log₁₀ cfu/ml, respectively. The mean values of TVC, TCC and TSC of swab samples collected from cutting knife, butchers hands and chevon cutting wood surface also indicated high contamination and acted as a source of contamination to chevon. The chevon samples were predominantly contaminated with Escherichia coli (38.33%), followed by Bacillus cereus (35.83%), Staphyloccous aureus (29.17%) and Proteus spp. (18.33%). Most of the isolates were susceptible to chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin and gentamycin and resistant to amoxicillin and ampicillin. E. coli and Proteus spp. were resistant to streptomycin. S. aureus and B. cereus were resistant to methecillin and oxytetracycline, respectively. The present study emphasized that the microbial quality of raw chevon was poor and not good for public health in Tripura.