Abstract:
Food-borne zoonotic hazards posed in milk and milk products are currently a serious concern of
public health safety issue that plays a significant role on the emerging economies across the world
especially in the low and middle income countries including Bangladesh. Raw or unpasteurized
milk supports to be the excellent medium for a variety of bacterial growth, and transmits a number
of bacterial pathogens cause diseases in consumers because of poor handling and also informal
milk value chains. Many Previous studies reported that a number of bacterial pathogens were
isolated from milk and milk products, and also from farms environments. Among these organisms,
the most common pathogenic bacterial species in milk (raw) samples are Escherichia coli,
Salmonella spp. Staphylococcus aureus, etc. which are the major public health concerns. The
number of raw milk outlets has been continuously increasing in the local markets. These outlets
retail milk to the poor people who are at high risk of the illnesses from milk-borne pathogens. So,
milk could have the major public health concerns due to poses of the pathogenic bacteria for the
communities who still consume raw or unpasteurized milk. Therefore, the current study conducted
on a study to isolate and identify the pathogenic bacteria in bovine raw milk samples. A total of
54 bovine raw milk was collected and subjected to bacteriological analysis. In results, three
bacterial species such as E. coli, Salmonella spp. and S. aureus were contaminated raw milk with
a prevalence rate of 20.37%, 3.70% and 35.18 %, respectively. Besides, a high number of
antibiotics were found to be resistant against all these 3 bacterial species, and the overall
prevalence of MDR isolated bacteria was of 27.27%, 50% and 42.11% for E. coli, Salmonella spp.
and S. aureus, respectively, which is indicated the serious public health concern. Based on the
results demonstrated here, it could be concluded that proper hygienic maintenance of both milking
and farm husbandry practices might reduce the chances of bacterial contamination. Besides, it is
highly suggested that there is the urgency of increase adequate public awareness about the
importance of hygienic milk production and also consumption of pasteurized/ processed milk to
prevent milk borne infections.
