Background and Aim: Contamination of food with enterotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus is a risk factor for public health. Because of lack of information on the contamination of the processed meat products including sausage and hams with the enterotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus, the present study was conducted to assess the presence of these toxins in the aforementioned products in Iran.

Material and Methods: In this cross sectional study, 72 samples of sausage and ham were obtained from product storages of four active meat processing plants with different qualitative grades; including A, B, C and D in summer of 2015 in Isfahan Province, Iran. The qualitative grading of the meat processing plants was performed on the basis of the "pre requisite programs: PRPs" form approved by Food and Drug Administration of Ministry of Health in Iran. The scores of hygienic factors including "hygiene of workers", "production and processing", "washing, disinfection, cleaning" and "hazard identification and verification" of the aforementioned meat processing plants were determined according to the PRPs form. The meat processing plant with qualitative grades of A, B, C and D had the scores of 924, 825, 754 and 614, respectively. The hygienic grades of meat processing plants were "desirable", based on the PRPs form. The ELISA kite was used to detect the enterotoxins of staphylococcus aureus.

Results: The results showed lack of contamination of the processed meat products with enterotoxins of staphylococcus aureus  in all sampls obtained from all of the factories with different qualitative grades.

Conclusion: The result of the current study showed that the implementation of suitable designs in relation to the hygienic principles and the continuous surveillance of food inspectors of the Department of Food and Drug of Isfahan University of medical sciences could have a positive role in prevention of contamination of sausage and hams with enterotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus.

Keywords: Enterotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus, Sausage, Ham, Meat processing plants, Isfahan, Iran.

Received: Jan 2, 2016      Accepted: Sep 5, 2016