ABSTRACT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently published a report on outbreaks in the United States from 1993-2006 due to the ingestion of contaminated dairy products derived from either non-pasteurized or pasteurized milk (Langer et al. 2012). The pathogens identifi ed as the etiological agents in non-pasteurized dairy products were Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC), Brucella spp., Listeria spp. and Shigella spp. For pasteurized dairy products, the leading causative agent was norovirus followed by Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens, Bacillus cereus, Listeria spp. and Shigella spp. Other microbial pathogens that have been associated with milk-related outbreaks are enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, beta hemolytic Streptococcus, Yersinia enterocolitica and Coxiella burnetti. Depending on the source of milk, other pathogenic microbes have been found which includes the parasitic protozoa Toxoplasma gondii, E. coli (enterotoxigenic E. coli, ETEC; enteroinvasive E. coli, EIEC; enteropathogenic E. coli, EPEC), Mycobacterium spp. and, in addition, microbial products such as Staphylococcal enterotoxins and fungal afl atoxins.