PUBLIC HEALTHHAZARDS DUE TO! SOME SHEllFISHES

Abstract

Shellfish have a highly palatable and digestible quality among consumers m Egypt and allover the world, but several outbreaks were reported world wide associated with ingestion of contaminated

shellfish.

One hundred samples of freshly caught shellfish, 40 of crabs and

30 of each of Gandoffli and Om EI-Kholoul samples were collected from

Alexandria, Domiate and lsmailia coasts during the period from October

1998 to August 2000 and subjected for bacteriolo :,rical analysis to explore the probable hazardous associated with such palatable popular foods.

The bacteriological study of examined shellfish samples revealed that the average counts /g of sample for APC, psychrophils, anaerobic, Enterobacteriaceae, Coliforms, E. coli, S. aureus and Vibrio species in

examined crabs were: 1.4xl06

lxl04 , 2.3xl05

1.8xi04 , 2.lx102, 3.3xl0

2 and 6.3xl0 5

and 1.2x103 Gandoffii and Om EI-Kholoul samples were: 5

5.6x10

and 8.5x10

, 3x103 and 2.9x103, 3.5xl05 and l.lx106, 9.9xJ03

and 9.7xl0°', 9.8xl0 and 1.4xl02, 6.8xl0 and 8.7xl0, 8.7xl02 and 2.9xl02 and 7.8xl03 and 1.2xl03

The mem1 values of APC, anaerobic, Enterobacteriaceae, Colifonn (MPN), h•. coli (MPN), S. aureus and Vibrio spp. counts, were higher in hot season rather than cold one in examined samples.

Conceming the coasts where samples were collected from, it was evident that samples collected from Alexandria had generally the highest rate of contamination with most of the investigated microbial groups followed by smnples collected fonn Domiate and lsmailia.