Cross Sectional Study of Skin Carriage and Enterotoxigenicity of Staphylococcus aureus among Food Handlers

Moustafa El-Shenawy, Mohamed Tawfeek, Lobna El-Hosseiny, Mohamed El-Shenawy, Aida Farag, Hoda Baghdadi, Ola Saleh, Jordi Mañes, José Miguel Soriano

Department of Environmental Studies, Institute of Graduate Studies and Research, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Department of Food Microbiology, National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt.
Department of Microbiology, National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Alexandria, Egypt.
Observatory of Nutrition and Food Safety in Developing Countries, Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Valencia, Burjassot, Spain.

DOI: 10.4236/ojmm.2014.41003                

Abstract

The prevalence of enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus was investigated among 200 participants working in three different food processing plants in Egypt. Using skin swabs, 75 (38%) of the 200 tested persons were positive for the presence of S. aureus. Of the S. aureus positive persons, 28 (14%) harboured S. aureus produced staphylococcal enterotoxins. The serotypes of these enterotoxins were enterotoxin A (68%), enterotoxin B (36%), enterotoxin C (46%) and enterotoxin D (18%). Some of these isolates produced more than one type of enterotoxins namely AB, AC, BC, BD, ABC and ACD. Analysis of risk factors implicated in skin carriage of S. aureus as age, gender, marital status, education, duration in employment, frequency and method of hand wash and incidence of chronic skin infection revealed insignificant association with staphylococcal skin carriage. The obtained results put forth the risk of food contracting contamination with enterotoxigenic strains of S. aureus owing to skin colonization of S. aureus among food handlers.

Keywords

Enterotoxigenic S. aureus; Skin Carriage; Risk Factors; Food Handlers

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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