Staph

Staph general information

        The Staphylococci are Gram-positive Cocci usually arranged in clusters. Currently, there are 44 species. The species staphylococcus aureus (more commonly known as staphylococcus aureus) is usually called from other staphylococci coagulase negative staphylococci (SCN) by the presence of coagulase. Staphylococcus aureus (Staph) is a common pathogen responsible for a wide range of infections, from trivial to severe pyoderma septicemia, which can occur in both community and in hospitals. staphylococcus aureus is a germ very important both in the community as nosocomial infections.

        The natural reservoir of staphylococci is the man and warm-blooded animals. However, removed from the external environment, these highly resistant bacteria are frequently found in the environment. Staphylococcus aureus is a microorganism capable of synthesizing numerous toxins that facilitate the colonization of the recipient sites from sites of infection. However, the interest of the microorganism in food safety, is its ability to synthesize toxins in food contaminated heat, called "staphylococcal enterotoxins (ES), which, when present in sufficient quantities, give rise to a common form of food poisoning, whose name is "poisoning by staphylococcal enterotoxin or staphylococcal intoxication" (IS).

        The staphylococcal enterotoxins is a family of esoproteine: now you know about 20 different serotypes and are named with the capital letters of the Latin alphabet. The biological peculiarities of these proteins is their remarkable thermal stability (some are inactivated at 100 ° C after different time!)
And can withstand the cooking process requests received by the food. The staphylococcal enterotoxins, with responsibility for the paintings that symptoms are observed in the course of staphylococcal intoxication, molecules are colorless and odorless, so their presence in food is not only demonstrated by evaluating characteristics. However, not all strains of staphylococcus aureus are enterotossigeni , this capacity is owned by about 50% of the frames.
In Europe, from 1988 to 1992, staphylococcus aureus has become responsible for 5.1% of all incidents reported to the epidemic health authorities in Italy, the same five years, the microorganism has caused 4 of the 233 episodes of illness recorded food. It should be stressed again that these data are severely underestimated because it is a mild disease, usually the patient is not affected use of medical services, so the episode is still not registered.

               

        Compared with the previous decade, there is currently a general decrease of cases of IS: recent epidemiological data show that in the United States alone, are reported each year about 200,000 cases but it is a rare disease that requires hospitalization, the researchers estimate that the phenomenon cases that actually occur are much higher.