Thermophilic Campylobacter spp. in salad vegetables in Malaysia.
The main aim of this study was to combine the techniques of most probable number (MPN) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for quantifying the prevalence and numbers of Campylobacter spp. in ulam, a popular Malaysian salad dish, from a traditional wet market and two modern supermarkets in Selangor, Malaysia. A total of 309 samples of raw vegetables which are used in ulam were examined in the study. The prevalences of campylobacters in raw vegetables were, for supermarket I, Campylobacter spp., 51.9%; Campylobacter jejuni, 40.7%; and Campylobacter coli, 35.2%: for supermarket II, Campylobacter spp., 67.7%; C. jejuni, 67.7%; and C. coli, 65.7%: and for the wet market, Campylobacter spp., 29.4%; C. jejuni, 25.5%; and C. coli, 22.6%. In addition Campylobacter fetus was detected in 1.9% of raw vegetables from supermarket I. The maximum numbers of Campylobacter spp. in raw vegetables from supermarkets and the wet market were >2400 and 460 MPN/g, respectively.
Chai
Lay Ching
LC
Department of Food Science, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, University Putra Malaysia, 43300 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. layching_2000@yahoo.com
Robin
Tunung
T
Ragavan
Usha Menon
UM
Gunsalam
Jurin Wolmon
JW
Bakar
Fatimah Abu
FA
Ghazali
Farinazleen Mohamad
FM
Radu
Son
S
Kumar
Malakar Pradeep
MP
D002167:Campylobacter / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D015995:Prevalence; D014675:Vegetables / Q000382:microbiology*