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ABSTRACT

Milk and milk products serve as important source of many disease producing microbes including Listeria monocytogenes, which is a Gram-positive, motile, psychotropic bacterium, and is the principal cause of listeriosis in humans and in a wide variety of animals including birds. The disease occurs in sporadic as well as in epidemic form, following the ingestion of food contaminated by this organism. In the world, it is becoming an important food-borne bacterial disease, with low incidence but high case fatality rate. L. monocytogenes primarily affects older, pregnant women, newborns, and adults with weakened immune systems; and it has been recovered from the soil, dust, water, sewage, decaying vegetation, etc. Raw or inadequately pasteurized milk (or milk contaminated post-pasteurization), soft cheeses, ice cream and other dairy products are important sources of L. monocytogenes in humans. The disease has two forms, one febrile gastroenteritis and other invasive systemic disease. The control of Listeria in foods relies largely on a HACCP approach and the establishment of effective critical control points in the process. As milk and milk products are important vehicles of L. monocytogenes and clear risk factors, it is emphasized that people susceptible for acquiring listeriosis should not consume unpasteurized milk and milk products.

Keywords: HACCP, Listeria monocytogenes, milk and milk products, pasteurization, public health.