MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF RAW COWS MILK IN PESHAWAR DISTRICT

Objectives To study the microbial analysis of raw cow's milk collected from selling points of Peshawar. Materials and methods: A total of 80 aseptically raw milk samples were collected by multistage sampling technique from four towns of Peshawar in sterile glass bottles and stored in ice container for laboratory analysis at Agriculture University Peshawar. Microbial analysis was performed on plate count and samples were screened for staph aureus, E.coli spp, and salmonella spp. Microbiological load was tested and the data were analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Results: The microbial analysis of milk revealed contamination of milk and most prevalent bacteria was Escherichia coli (26.2%) and least prevalent was Salmonella spp (3.75%). Conclusion Although the presence of E.coli spp, staph spp and salmonella spp. indicate that the milk is contaminated but found that total bacterial count was within  permissible limit. If not controlled in time will lead to public health issues. This highlights an urgent need to adopt good sanitary practices and monitoring of milk from production to distribution by the health authorities.