Detection of toxoplasmosis and salmonellosis in meat juice: experimental and surveillance studies

ABSTRACT

Public health and economic impact of toxoplasmosis and salmonellosis in meat is considerable in terms of morbidity and even mortality in humans. Up to date, there is no suitable method for diagnosis of both diseases in meat of slaughtered animals. The present study evaluated the meat juice as a sample from experimentally infected mice with Toxoplasma gondii [T.gondii] or Salmonella typhimurium [S.typhimurium] for detection of anti-toxoplosma or anti-salmonella antibodies by an indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay [ELISA] technique. The results of the current study revealed that there were no statistically significant differences when comparing results of muscle juice ELISA to those obtained from serum samples of mice with strong correlation between the two samples. This indicated that, meat juice is as efficient as blood in diagnosis of toxoplasmosis and salmonellosis. Moreover, the superiority of meat juice lies in its ability for diagnosis when blood is not obtainable. The use of this sample was applied in surveillance study which was done on randomly collected beef and chicken meat. The antibodies against T.gondii and S. typhimurium were detected in 31%, 22% and 14%, 7% respectively. This justifies the importance of meat juice to be used in the future large scale meat screening programs