Technical report on molecular detection of some foodborne pathogens in ready-to-eat grilled beef sausages from selected street vendors in Accra using optimized reaction volume and single PCR condition

Abstract

Instantaneous procedures that are sensitive for detecting bacteria pathogens in food are lacking and needed. Preventable food borne diseases continue to affect many particularly in developing countries and this has hindered food security in such areas. Improving pathogen detection methods by exploring the most modern techniques and optimizing these techniques to identify multiple organisms within the shortest period of time is desirable. Hence, this study set out to investigate the usefulness of a single PCR condition to amplify the target genes of four different foodborne pathogens. A single thermal cycling protocol was used to identify and confirm the presence of four different bacteria pathogens namely; Salmonella spp, Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus in RTE beef sausages. The data obtained from this study suggest that all the above mentioned organisms were present in RTE grilled beef sausages sampled from various parts of Accra. Therefore, the following conclusions can be drawn from the present study; the safety of RTE grilled beef sausages analyzed cannot be assured and the use of the same PCR condition is capable of detecting four pathogens in a shorter time