Abstract
During the period from October, 1987 to November, 1988, a total of 158 meat samples, consisting of 79 chicken and 79 pork, obtained at six butchers in Kanagawa prefecture were examined for the presence of motile Aeromonas. It was found that 31 (39.2%) of 79 chicken and 27 (34.2%) of 79 pork were harbouring some motile Aeromonas. The population of motile Aeromonas in chicken varied from 1.0×102 cfu/g to 4.2×105 cfu/g, while that in pork from 6.0×102 cfu/g to 2.8×104 cfu/g. Chicken tended to be somewhat more heavyly contaminated with motile Aeromonas than pork. Attempts were made to identify the isolates by the method of Popoff and revealed that 19 (20.7%) of 92 isolates (from both chicken and pork) were identified as Aeromonas hydrophila, 35 (38.0%) as A. sobria, 14 (15.2%) as A. caviae and the rest 24 (26.1%) were untypable. The phage typing method developed by Fukuyama et al. revealed that 17 (25.0%) of 68 isolates were typed as one of 11 phage types. Of them, phage types I, IV and V were predominant.
