No one should have to fear food poisoning every time they eat or drink, but the reality, even in the 21st century, is that risks remain. An Osaka Metropolitan University-led Egypt-Japan research team found E. coli prevalent in over 25% of popular milk and dairy products in Egypt.

Of the 210 samples of raw milk, cheese, and yoghurt, 26.2% were positive for E. coli, with the highest being raw buffalo milk at 68%, and the lowest at 7.5% for rayeb, a type of fermented milk. The preference for raw milk instead of pasteurized milk and varying hygienic conditions at small dairies and markets could explain these results. Yet food poisoning affects every country, even ones viewed as being extremely hygienic like Japan.

The researchers found that one of the E. coli strains they isolated from the samples collected in 2018 in Egypt had the same characteristics as the E. coli that caused food poisoning in Japan’s central Toyama Prefecture in 2021. During that case, contaminated milk affected more than 1,800 children across 25 schools.

“The E. coli discovered in this study has attracted attention as a new pathogenic E. coli that does not fall into any existing category,” explained Graduate School of Veterinary Science Professor Shinji Yamasaki, the corresponding author who is also a leading figure at the Osaka International Research Center for Infectious Diseases. “In the future, as the clarification of the properties of this pathogen progresses further, we hope our research will lead to the establishment of effective treatment and prevention methods.”

The findings were published in the International Dairy Journal.

Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding
This work was financially supported by the basic research grant provided by Osaka Prefecture University and Osaka Metropolitan University. This work was also supported by the Egypt-Japan Education Partnership (EJEP). E.M.A. was a recipient of the MEXT Scholarship for a PhD program from the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sports of Japan. This study was performed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a PhD thesis for Asmaa M. Elbastawesy from the Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka, Japan.

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