Occurrence of Shiga Toxin Producing E. coli in Milk and Milk Products collected in and around Jabalpur

The aim of the present study was to observe the occurrence and to characterize E. coli isolates from various sources of milk and milk products in Jabalpur city. In total 210 milk and milk products samples were collected from different sources in Jabalpur city. For isolation of E.coli, the milk samples were enriched in macconkey lactose broth followed by selective plating on eosin methylene blue agar. The isolates were characterized on the basis of molecular typing and their antimicrobial profile. Out of 210 samples examined, 49 E. coli isolates were obtained showing an overall occurrence of 23.33% with the highest presence in raw milk (40.07%) followed by ice cream (28.57%), khoa (21.42%), dahi (16.66%) and flavored milk (9.52%). The molecular study with PCR revealed that a total of 55.1% (27/49) E. coli isolates were positive for uspA gene. Out of 27 uspA positives, 3(11.1%) and 8(29.62%) were possessing stx1 and stx2 respectively and 1(3.7%) had both stx1 and stx2 gene. Among the antibiotics tested, E. coli showed higher sensitivity to netillin (95.9%), gentamicin (87.7%), amikacin and chloramphenicol (77.5%), ofloxacin (71.4%), kanamycin (65.3%), norfloxacin (63.2%) and ciprofloxacin (59.1%) and resistant to nitrofurantoin (81.6%), ampicillin (75.5%), cefotaxime (71.4%), tetracycline (61.2%) and ceftazidime (55.1%). The results indicates the presence of pathogenic strains of E. coli in milk and milk products, which reflects poor hygienic condition and thus, the consumption of products may cause public health hazards.