Bacterial flora of mud crab, Scylla olivacea, collected from different markets of Dhaka City

Abstract

The present study was carried out to investigate the bacterial flora of mud crab (Scylla olivacea) meat collected from the five markets of Dhaka city. Faecal Coliform, Salmonella sp. and Shigella sp., E. coil, and Vibrio spp. were detected in most of the samples except the frozen ones from Agora super shop. The samples from Basabo and Karwan bazar had higher bacterial load than the others. The highest TBC counts were observed in the samples from Karwan bazar (38.1 ± 1.20 x 10⁴cfu/g) and the lowest were from Agora super shop (4.48 ± 0.26 x10⁴cfu/g). The total Vibrio spp. counts were found only in two markets, i.e. from Farmgate and Basabo. The total E. coli counts ranged from 1.25 ± 0.02 x 10⁴cfu/g to 4.33 ± 0.56 x 10⁴cfu/g. The Salmonella and Shigella counts varied between3.95 ± 0.28 x 10⁴cfu/g for Karwan bazaar and 16.76 ± 1.26 x 10⁴cfu/g for Basabo. Total Staphylococcus spp. counts ranged between 14.4 ± 1.1 x 10⁴cfu/g and 20.01± 1.94 x 10⁴cfu/g for normal crab samples and 0.37 ± 0.025 x 10⁴cfu/g for frozen samples. The results of this study showed that the bacterial load was significantly higher in live crab than the frozen crab indicating that later are safe for human consumption.

Bangladesh J. Zool. 43(1): 55-62, 2015