Occurrence of Enterobacter sakazakii in food production environments and households.
Enterobacter sakazakii occasionally causes illness in premature babies and neonates. Contamination of infant formulae during factory production or bottle preparation is implicated. Advice to health-care professionals focuses on bottle preparation, but the effectiveness of prevention depends on the degree of contamination and contamination sites, which are generally unknown. To keep contamination to a minimum in the finished product depends on knowledge of the occurrence of E sakazakii. We used a refined isolation and detection method to investigate the presence of this micro-organism in various food factories and households. Environmental samples from eight of nine food factories and from five of 16 households contained E sakazakii. The widespread nature of this micro-organism needs to be taken into account when designing preventive control measures.
Kandhai
M Chantal
MC
Wageningen University, Laboratory of Food Microbiology, PO Box 8129, 6700 EV, Wageningen, Netherlands. Chantal.Kandhai@wur.nl
Reij
Martine W
MW
Gorris
Leon G M
LG
Guillaume-Gentil
Olivier
O
van Schothorst
Mike
M
D044083:Cronobacter sakazakii / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004756:Enterobacteriaceae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D004866:Equipment Contamination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D005525:Food-Processing Industry / Q000592:standards*; D006798:Housing / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007225:Infant Food / Q000382:microbiology; D007231:Infant, Newborn