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Page No. : 7–10

ABSTRACT

Seventy-one meat and meat product samples viz., chicken (19), mutton (20), butter chicken (19), chicken soup (7) and mutton soup (6) were collected for the detection and enumeration of Bacillus cereus. An overall incidence of 56.3% of B. cereus was observed, whereas the incidence in chicken, mutton, butter chicken, chicken soup and mutton soup was 63.2%, 55.0%, 57.9%, 57.1% and 33.3%, respectively. High counts of B. cereus (>10⁵ cells/g) were found in 17.5% of the positive samples and 10.0% of the total samples. The serotypes detected were H-1, H-8, H-17, H-25, B, iii and some untypable strains. Seventeen out of 40 (42.5%) B. cereus isolates were found to be enterotoxigenic by the rabbit ileal loop method and rabbit skin vascular permeability factor assay.

Keywords: Bacillus cereus, Meat and meat products, Enterotoxigenicity