Hyderabad: In a joint study carried out by researchers from Hyderabad’s Osmania University, Kerala’s Amrita School of Biotechnology and SLS Cell Cure Technologies, 44 percent of raw meat and fish samples were found to be contaminated by Enterococcus faecalis. The harmful gut bacteria has outsmarted Escherichia coli, and was found to be present in the raw meat samples of mutton, chicken, beef and fish sold in Hyderabad markets.
Enterococcus faecalis or E faecalis causes ailments ranging from meningitis to blood poisoning (septicaemia). The main reason for the contamination was found to be the bad handling of meat by sellers. It was also revealed that meat was more contaminated than eggs.
“We observed 44% Enterococcus faecalis, 40% Klebsiella oxytoca, 10% E coli and 4% Pseudomonas mirabilis,” the researchers said in the study published. The other harmful bacterias were also found such as Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Salmonella species, Bordetella, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterococcus aerogenes, Micrococcus species, Citrobacter species, Proteus species and Providencia species.
E faecalis was predominantly present in chicken samples, while E coli was found mostly in beef. In the study conducted, 100 meat samples were collected from shops located at Moula Ali, AS Rao Nagar, Malkajgiri and Tarnaka. Enterococcus faecalis was the most predominant organism found.