Occurraence of enterotoxin strains of clostridium perfringens type A

.This study was carried out on fresh meat immediately after slaughter and on processed meat.A total of 530 meat samples were examined for the presence of Cl. perfringens, 423 were from freshmeat obtained immediately after slaughtering (108 cattle meat, 101 sheep meat, 100 camel meat and 114buffaloe meat) and 107 processed meat (57 fromsausage and 50 from minced meat). fl.perfringens was isolated from 204 (48.2%) of fresh meat samples,61 (56.5%) from cattle meat, 53 (52.5%) from sheep meat, 45 (45%) from camel meat and 45 (39.5%) from buffaloe meat. The isolation rate of fl.perfringenswas higher in processed mea t, it was isola ted from 68 (63.6%) of which 45 (78.9%) from sausage and 23(46%) in minced meat.The processed meat was found to harbour higher viable count rangiirig between 4 X102 - 7’ X” 106 Clperfringenscells/gm meat than fresh meat in which ”2 6 the number ranged from 10 - 5 X 10 Gells/gm meat. The highest number was found in sausage which reached 7 X 106 cells/gm meat. The total viable count of Cl. perfringensin ten fresh meat samples was 4