Survey of the contamination of foodstuffs of animal origin by Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 in Belgium from 1999 to 2003

A Chahed; Y Ghafir; B China; K Dierick; L De Zutter; D Piérard; G Daube

doi:10.2807/esm.10.03.00527-en

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Survey of the contamination of foodstuffs of animal origin by Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 in Belgium from 1999 to 2003
A Chahed¹ , Y Ghafir¹ , B China¹ , K Dierick² , L De Zutter³ , D Piérard⁴ , G Daube¹
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Affiliations: ¹ Food Sciences department– Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liege, Belgium ² Scientific Public Health Institute, Laboratory of Microbiology, Brussels, Belgium ³ Food Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Gent, Belgium ⁴ Department of Microbiology, Academic Hospital, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

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Citation style for this article: Chahed A, Ghafir Y, China B, Dierick K, De Zutter L, Piérard D, Daube G. Survey of the contamination of foodstuffs of animal origin by Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 in Belgium from 1999 to 2003. Euro Surveill. 2005;10(3):pii=527. https://doi.org/10.2807/esm.10.03.00527-en

Abstract

A survey of the prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) of O157 serotype in foodstuffs of animal origin (beef, veal, pork, chicken, fish) from 1999 to 2003 in Belgium was performed. STEC strains were only isolated from beef with a prevalence of 0.73%. This percentage is low in comparison with the prevalence in other countries. Among the 76 isolated STEC O157 strains, 75% belonged to the serotype O157:H7 and 25% to the serotype O157 non H7. Moreover, the most frequent pathotype was eae stx2 ehxA (74%).