<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-weight: bold" lang="EN-US">Occurrence of <i>Vibrio parahaemolyticus </i>in marine fish and shellfish </span>

Abstract

<i>Vibrio parahaemolyticus </i>is a marine bacterium that causes seafood borne gastroenteritis and traveler’s diarrhea in humans, after consumption of contaminated raw or partially cooked fish or shell fish. In this study a total of 224 marine fish and shellfish samples were screened that included 34 of Bhetki (<i>Lates calcarifer</i>), 40 of Parse <i>(Liza parsia)</i>, 40 of Pabda (<i>Ompok pabda</i>), 30 of Pomfret (<i>Pampus chinensis</i>), 38 of Lote fish (<i>Harpodon nehereus</i>) and 42 of Tiger prawn <i>(Penaeus monodon)</i>. <i>V. parahaemolyticus </i>was identified by biochemical characterization and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the <i>tox</i>R gene. Out of 224 samples, <i>V. parahaemolyticus </i>could be isolated and biochemically characterized from 170 (75.9 %) samples including <i>L. calcarifer </i>31 (91.2%), <i>L. parsia </i>28 (70.0%), <i>O. pabda </i>30 (75.0%), <i>P. chinensis </i>22 (73.3%), <i>H. nehereus </i>28 (73.7%) and <i>P. monodon </i>31 (73.8%). All the positive isolates were further confirmed by PCR amplification of target gene, <i>tox</i>R.