Detection of Bacterial Contamination of Imported Chicken Meat in Iraq

Abstract

With the constant increase in poultry meat consumption worldwide and the largevariety of poultry meat products and consumer demand, guaranteeing the microbialsafety of poultry carcasses and cuts is crucial.During 2018; one hundred-ten chicken meat samples were collected randomlyfrom local markets in Baghdad. Selective and differential media were used to isolateand identify the contaminant bacteria from the collected samples, the predominantspecies was Klebsiella pneumoniae, 47 isolates (42%), followed by Escherichia coli35 isolates (31%), 13 (11%) Citrobacter freundii, 9 (8%) Salmonella, and 6 (5%)Shigella. Vitek -2 system used to confirm the identification of Citrobacter spp, andKlebsiella spp. while 16s rRNA gene amplification using PCR technique wasapplied to confirm the identification of C. freundii.