Prevalence of sarcocystis in bovine meat and effect of cooking on its viability

ABSTRACT

Sarcocystis is one of the important parasites infecting bovine meat. Protection from infection needs supervised slaughtering and good cooking. Random samples of bovine meat and serum were collected from 100 cattle slaughtered in Assiut abattoir, inspected and examined macroscopically, microscopically and serologically for sarcocysts. The prevalence of infection by macroscopic examination was [2%] and microscopic examination was [64%], while the seroprevelance was [71%]. Infected meat samples were processed for different methods of cooking and the viability of Sarcocystis was estimated by antigen capture ELISA. The parasite lost its viability and antigenicity by heating at 66-68. The best safe methods for protection from infection were boiling for 10-20 minutes and grilling of small meat samples for 10 minutes and large samples for 20 minutes while roasting is risky when cooked as raredone