Aerobic Bacteria Isolated from Condemned Camel Livers in Southern Darfur , Sudan

The objective of this study was to estimate the magnitude of liver condamnination due to bacterial infection and to characterize aerobic bacteria causing camel liver condamnination in Nyala city, South Darfur, Sudan. Eight hundred and ten camel livers were inspected and one hundred and three liver samples were collected in 2008-2010. Bacteriological and serological methods were used to isolate and identify aerobic bacteria causing liver infection. Results showed that the bacterial lesions were found in 36 (35%) samples out of 103 condemned inspected camel livers, the others causes were hydatid cyst 37 (35.9%), fibrosis 26 (25.2%) and calcification 4 (3.9%). Bacterial lesions consist of: abscesses 22 (61.1%), caseated nodules 13 (36.1%) and one (2.8%) congestion. Out of 36 aerobically incubated samples, 29 showed bacterial growth (80.6%) and seven cultures (19.4%) showed no growth. The isolates were identified to Staphylococcus spp. 11 (37.9%) which included; Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) 7 (63.6%), S. haemolyticus 3 (27.3%) and one (9.1%) S. caseolyticus while, Streptococcus pyogenes was found to be nine (31.0%) and Corynebactriumpseudotuberclosissix (20.7%). Mixed cultures (Staphylococcus and Streptococcus) were found to be three (10.3%). Many bacteria seem to be caused camel liver condamnination and the most one is S. aureustherefore, camel liver need carefully inspection and awareness about consumption of raw livermust be raise


INTRODUCTION
Sudan is the one of the largest camel population countries in the world (Wilson, 1984) and owns about 3.6 million head of camel (Report, 2003).More than 80% of camel populations in Sudan were found in Kordofan and Darfur States (Idris, 2003).A total of 1170265 head in Southern Darfur;158239 head in Northern Darfur and 4634 head in Western Darfur according to Ministry of Animal Resource (MAR, 2009).
Last years, camel breeders were forced to settle in South Darfur due to drought and desertification.The settlement of camel breeders around has an apparent effect on societies living around them, especially in eating habits such as the consumption of camel meat lead many people eating raw camel livers and more than 100 camel head were slaughtered in Nyala slaughterhouse per month (MAR, 2009).
In Sudan, isolation of bacteria from camel liver was reported by Hamed (2008).In South Darfur State, Brucella as a zoonotic pathogen was reported in Camels by Musa et al. (2000) and Raga (2000) and Hassan et al. (2007) succeed to isolate Streptococcus pyogenes and Staphylococcus aureus from camel lung but there is no research conducted to study camel liver infection in study area.Therefore, this work aimed to reflect the risk of consuming raw livers by means of the isolation of aerobic bacteria from condemned camel livers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Study area: This study was carried out in Nyala city, the capital of South Darfur State, during the period from August, 2008 to August, 2010.

Collection of samples:
A total of 810 camel livers were inspected at Nyala slap and 103 samples of condemned camel livers were collected.Samples such as abscesses, caseated nodules and congestion were investigated at Nyala Veterinary Research Laboratory for bacterial isolation.The isolates were identified using bacteriological method.Other lesions including; hydatid cyst, fibrosis and calcification were diagnosed at slaughterhouse.
Isolation of the organisms: Samples (abscess, caseated nodules and congestion) were streaked onto blood agar plates then incubated aerobically at 37°C.Growth was examined after 24-48 h then sub-cultured and checked for purity under the microscope by examining smears stained by Gram and ZeihNeelson stains.
Identification of isolates: Isolated organisms were further identified according to the criteria outlined by Barrow and Feltham (2003)

Biochemical kits:
The results of biochemical tests (kits) for Staphylococcus andStreptococcus spp.showed in Table 2.

DISCUSSION
Some investigators reported different liver condemnation rates due to bacterial infection mainly hepatic abscesses in other ruminants.Rosa et al., (1989) reported 2.5%in goat in Northeast Brazil while Ahmedullah et al. (2007) found 3.8% in the same species in Bangladesh.Mellau et al., (2007) reported 18829 (16.3%), 10515(17.1%)and 7011(18.5%)livers of cattle, sheep and goats respectively were condemned due to different diseases included hepatic abscesses.In Western Nigeria, Cadmus and Adesokam (2009) reported liver condemnation rate due to abscess was 1.1% in cattle, 1.0% in sheep and 1.5% in goats and Hamad (2008) in East Sudan reported 97 camel abscesses from lung, liver and lymphnodes, but information about camel liver infection is rare or may be absent especially in the area of study and this work seems to be the first one of its kind.In this study, the total condemnation rate of camel liver was 103(12.7%)and 36(35%) due to bacterial infection; abscess represented 22(61.1%)as the most bacterial lesions.This finding is in agreed with Al-Ani et al. (1998) in Jordan and Radwan et al. (1989) in Saudi Arabia.In this study caseated nodules represented 13(36.1) of the total bacterial lesions.Such observation is believed to be reported for the first time as bacterial lesion which caused condemnation of camel liver.However caseated nodules were reported in other organs of camel such as the lung (Hassan et al., 2007).
In this study Staphylococcus spp.were found to be the most predominant isolates 11(37.93%)from camel liver and this result agreed with the results obtained by Azmi (2000) in Jordan and by Hamad (2008) in Sudan who found Staphylococcus spp.represented the highest isolation rate from camel liver.However the result disagreed with Seleim et al. (2003);El-Dakhly et al. (2007) who reported Pasturellamultocida, Enterococcus spp.and Salmonellaspp.respectively as the most prevalent isolates from camel liver.In this study, also Streptococcus pyogenes was isolated from the same organ and found to be 9(13.0%)and this result agreed with the findings reported in camel liver by Al-Ani et al. (1998) and El-Dakhly et al. (2007).In the same study, Coryenbacteium spp.seems to be isolated for the first time in Sudan from camel liver and constituted 6(20.7%), this in line with Radwan et al. (1989) and Rosa et al. (1989) who isolated the same bacterial species from camel liver.Different bacterial species isolates may be due to different camel living places and in an area of study camel sometimes shared other animal species in water and grazing.
In the present study some blood agar plates resulted in no growth and this agreed with the results obtained by Chardrdan et al. (2006) and Hamad (2008).This study concluded in, camel liver condemnation caused by different bacterial species and the predominant one is Staphylococcus spp., it was therefore, recommended that camel liver needs carefully inspection and more researches in addition to raise of awareness about consuming raw liver or meat.
which include; morphology, Gram reaction, ZeihNeelson stain, cultural characteristics, motility test and biochemical reaction then confirmed by the commercial Kits (KB004 and KB005 biochemical tests).Biochemical kits: Kits in this study used as a confirmatory test, it contains different biochemical tests as colorimetric identification system.Kit KB004 was used to differentiate the spices of the genus Staphylococcus spp.and Kit KB005 used for Streptococcus spp.The tests are based on the principle of PH change and substrate utilization.During incubation, tested organisms which grown on nutrient agar medium, made metabolic change which indicated by a colour change in the media, immediately or after addition of reagent.Statistical analysis: Statistical Package for Social Scenes (SPSS) was used to analyze data.

Fig. 1 :
Fig. 1: Bacterial lesions cause camel liver condemnation at Nyala slap and Rosa et al.

Table 1 :
Biochemical reactions used for the identification of the isolates to the species level

Table 2 :
The biochemical tests (Kits) used to confirm the identification of Staphylococcus and Streptococcusspecies