Prevalence of Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. in ready-to-eat meat and meat products in Himachal Pradesh.

In the present study, a total of 85 ready to eat meat and meat products were collected from 11 tourist's places of Himachal Pradesh to examine the prevalence of Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli during May 2010 till April 2011. Out of 33 samples, meat curry and 25 samples of non-veg momo, 4(12.12%) and 1(4.0%) were found to be positive for Escherichia coli. respectively. All the 5 E. coli isolates obtained were belonged to four different serotypes (O8, O89, O60 and O Rough). 40% of the E. coli isolates were found to be multi drug resistant (MDR) and maximum resistance was showed to Ampicilin. All the isolates were highly sensitive to Chloramphenicol. However, Salmonella spp. could not be isolated from any of the ready to eat meat and meat products. The present study reveals that the contamination of ready to eat foods of animal origin with E. coli could be an important factor of gastrointestinal illness in the consumers.