Incidence of Salmonella in dry-fish from the local markets of Cochin, Kerala

Abstract

World over, the consumption of seafood is increasing gradually in view of its high nutritional value in terms of protein, minerals, vitamins etc. However, the high moisture content, pH and the presence of autolytic enzymes makes it highly perishable in nature. In this context, various convenient seafood products evolved from fresh fishes like dried, salted, smoked, cured, canned and ready-to-eat products which usually give more shelf life without much nutrient loss. Among these, drying and salt curing is one of the oldest techniques which are being practiced in many parts of the world. But in this process, there may be chance of contaminants of microbial origins such as Salmonella which derived from natural aquatic environment or during processing. Since Salmonella species can withstand many stressful conditions its occurrence in dried and salted products with low water activity is always a problem. Hence understanding the behavior of Salmonella in salted and dried products is very important from a food safety standpoint. Around 100 dry fishes were collected from local markets in and around Cochin area and screened for Salmonella. The incidence rate of Salmonella in dry fishes is 4.61 per cent. Dried shrimp, anchovy and sardine were positive for Salmonella. Antibiogram profiling was performed against twenty antibiotics and all isolates were multidrug resistant towards various classes of antibiotics tested.