New method: NMKL 151 Presumptive Shigella spp. Detection in foods.

NMKL 151 Presumptive Shigella spp. Detection in foods has been reintroduced and updated.

The presence of Shigella in food and the environments is normally of human fecal origin. Shigella is host-specific for higher primates, including humans. Shigella is usually present in foods in low number due to their poor ability to compete. Consequently, they are notoriously difficult to detect in foods. The infectious dose is low, and only 10-100 Shigella are needed to cause infection. Due to the low infectious dose, cross contamination from infected humans to foods and further on to more persons can occur, for example through handling of foods. Person-to-person contamination can also occur. It has been shown that Shigella can survive in weeks and months in or on different foodstuffs.

In this updated method, a step to reduce background flora and ease the isolation of Shigella for some matrices has been introduced. In addition, recommendation regarding which plates to use has been added. This method can be used for subsequent isolation of Shigella spp. after using NMKL 174, 2016, for detection of the virulence factor ipaH in enrichment broth. NMKL 174 can also be used for detection of ipaH in presumptive colonies.