Three shops were randomly selected in Abeokuta (South-West Nigeria) and Benin-City (South-South Nigeria) for the purchase of sausages which were then screened for microbial contamination. For the Abeokuta sausage samples the total aerobic counts ranged from 2.06-2.80 x 10
6 cfu/g; Staphylococcus aureus count :1.1- 1.47 x 10
6 cfu/g ; Enterobacteriaceae count: 1.57- 2.17 x 10
6 cfu/g ; lactic acid bacteria count(LAB) count :1.70 - 2.33 x 10
6 cfu/g. With respect to the sample from Benin-City, the total aerobic count ranged from 3.54 x 106 cfu/g; S. aureus count: 1.8 x105- 2 x 10
7;
Enterobacteriaceae count: 5.09 x 10
8 cfu/g; LAB count :1.3 -4.6 x 10
8 cfu/g. Probable organisms isolated from sausages sold in Abeokuta were
E. coli,
Streptococcus
sp.,
Clostridium
sp.,
Klebsiella
sp.,
Shigella
sp.,
Pseudomonas
sp.,
Lactobacillus
sp., and
S. aureus while those organisms isolated from sausages sold in Benin-City include
Salmonella, Proteus, Shigella, S. aureus,
Klebsiella and
Lactobacillus sp. Most of the sausages sampled were therefore considered to pose health risk to consumers, making it imperative to institute not only sanitary measures during processing, storage and marketing but also to ensure steady source of power supply.
