Nutrition Status and Microbial Hazards in the Milk Supplied at Different Hospitals of Chattogram Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to investigate the quality of milk supplied to the patients by the different hospitals in Chattogram Metropolitan Area (CMA), Bangladesh. Three types of milk were supplied to the patients admitted in different hospitals at CMA. In context of the objectives of the study, a total of 20 samples were collected from 09(nine) different government and private hospitals of CMA to analyze the physical (specific gravity), nutritional (percentage of butter fat, protein, solids-not-fat and total solids), chemical (titrable acidity), added preservatives and adulteration status) and microbial (total viable count, total coliform count, E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus) parameters to evaluate the quality of the collected milk samples. The lowest and the highest specific gravity were 1.025±0.0012 and 1.03±0.0008 in raw and reconstituted milk respectively. In case of nutritional quality of milk, the highest average percentage of fat, solids-not-fat, total solids were 2.4±0.208, 9.30±0.219 and 11.3±0.354 respectively but the lowest protein% (3.92±0.245) was also found in reconstituted milk samples. The study also reveals that the lowest fat and total solids content were found 1.1±0.281 and 8.44±0.274 percent respectively in raw milk. The highest and the lowest titrable acidity % were 0.18±0.011 and 0.11±0.009 in raw and reconstituted milk respectively. All the milk samples irrespective of types of milk were adulterated with cane sugar. Powder milk and added water were detected in all the raw and pasteurized milk samples besides starch was detected in all raw milk samples. Most alarming fact is hydrogen-per-oxide was detected in all of the raw milk samples though the pasteurized and reconstituted milk samples were free from any kind of preservative. The quality of reconstituted milk from the nutritional, physical and chemical aspects was good compared to raw and pasteurized milk but significant (P˂0.01) variation were found among the hospitals. The TVC (Total Viable Bacterial Count) of all milk samples were found to be higher than acceptable limit. The highest TVC count was 1.50×106 CFU/ml in raw milk samples and the lowest was 1.25×104 CFU/ml in case of reconstituted milk samples. The highest TCC (Total Coliform Count) was 1.30×106 CFU/ml in raw milk samples and the lowest was 1.2×102 CFU/ml in reconstituted milk samples. On the other hand, E. coli was found negative in all of the samples but S. aureus was present in all of the milk samples. Among the S. aureus positive isolates, 50% were coagulase positive that indicates higher pathogenicity of the bacteria. This study indicates that all the milk samples collected from different hospitals were substandard and unsafe as far as microbial quality is concerned.