Discussion Committee:
Dr. Yahia Rashed Faydi - Supervisor
Prof. Mohammed Ali- Shtayeh - Internal Examiner
Dr. Issam A. Al- Khatib - External Examiner
Authors:
Sameh Ghazi Khalil Abu-Seir
Abstract:
A Total of 150 fresh samples were taken from Nablus Municipality slaughterhouse, including 37 liver samples of young calves, 38 liver samples of old cows, 37 meat samples of young calves, and 38 meat samples of old cows. These samples were cultured for total bacterial count, total coliform count (by pour plate count), Salmonella, and E.coli 0157: H7, in Nablus area. This was done by standard methods of enrichment, plating, biochemical and serological techniques. Total bacterial count and total coliform count indicate the overall microbial quantity, and hence the quality of meat and the degree of contamination of these samples either from endogenous sources or exogenous ones.
Ten percent of the total samples were unacceptable either due to high total bacterial count (4%) or due to the presence of Salmonella (6%). All the samples were negative for E.coli 0157: H7. The average total bacterial count for the samples was 2.8*105 CFU/gm, whereas the average total coliform count was 26 CFU/gm. Young calves showed 5.3% unacceptable samples which was higher than that of old cows that appeared to be 4.7%. For the presence of Salmonella, old cows showed an incidence of 3.3%, which was higher than that of calves that appeared to be 2.7%.The average total bacterial count for calves samples was 3.1 *10⁵ CFU/gm, while that of cows samples was 2.5*10⁵ CFU. No significant correlation was found between total bacterial count and total coliform count on one hand, and the presence or absence of Salmonella on the other.
The study also showed that there was no correlation between the age of the animal and the acceptance or rejection of the sample. There was also no significant correlation between the age of the animal and the presence or absence of Salmonella, or the total bacterial count