Microbial Quality Evaluation and Prevalence of Bacteria and Fungus in Different Varieties of Chicken Meat in Lahore

Shahbaz Ahmad Zakki; Rabia Qureshi; Areeba Hussain,; Wasif Ghias,; Musarrat Sharif,; Farheen Ansari

Shahbaz Ahmad Zakki Department of Microbiology,
Rabia Qureshi Department of Microbiology,
Areeba Hussain, Department of Microbiology,
Wasif Ghias, Department of Microbiology
Musarrat Sharif, Department of Microbiology
Farheen Ansari Department of Microbiology,

Abstract

Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the bacterial and fungal contamination in the chicken meat.
Method: For this purpose, a total of 180 samples of different categories of the chicken meat were collected from the areas of Kot Radha Kishan, Raiwind and Lahore city from which 9 types of bacterial species and 8 types of fungal species were isolated and confirmed by microscopy and biochemical analysis.
Results: The Mean Viable Count (MVC) of the raw unprocessed (RU), raw processed (RP) and cooked processed (CP) chicken meat were 7.9log10CFU/g, 4.37log10CFU/g and 2.66log10CFU/g respectively (p-value < 0.05) that lie in the unacceptable range for the human consumption. In RU meat, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Shigella sonnei were more prevalent while RP meat had the highest load of Bacillus cereus. Similarly, in CP meat, Bacillus cereus was more prevalent. It was also found that Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus were the most prevalent fungi in RU, RP and CP meat respectively while Fusareum avenaceum was only isolated from the RP meat.
Conclusion: It was concluded from the study that hygiene of the slaughtering facility of the open market and the personal hygiene of workers of the processing plants was very poor and the chicken meat of this study area was unsafe for use.