Biotypes and Enterotoxigenicity of Staphylococci Isolated from Camel’s Meat in Jordan

A total of 264 camel’s meat and nasal swab samples were collected for isolation and typing of Staphylococci from Irbid Governorate in northern Jordan. About 97 % and 85% of meat and nasal swabs samples showed typical colonies of Staphylococcus aureus on Baird-Parker agar respectively. Out of 243 presumptively identified isolates, only 74 and 64 were confirmed as S. aureus by Microbact system and PCR technique respectively. About 67% of the isolates were typable by Devriese’s scheme. Fifteen of those isolates (23%) were specifically allocated to human, bovine, ovine or abattoir where, 14% of these host specific isolates belonged to human biovar. The other 44% belonged to non-host specific biovars with majority of them were allocated to NHS1 biovar. When tested for the presence of toxin genes, 71.9% of S. aureus isolates had SE(s) genes with SEA being the most prominent at 91.3%. The study also showed that not only coagulase positive isolates contain toxin genes, coagulase negative isolates also possess toxin genes and thus are considered potential hazards in camel’s meat.