Prevalence of food-borne pathogens and growth potential of Salmonella in weaning foods from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

One hundred samples of ready-to-consume feeding bottle contents from outpatient infants were examined for the presence of Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus. Nearly all samples had very high gross bacterial contamination. Three Salmonella isolates were encountered from bottle contents made of cow's milk and gruel made from cereal blend. All belonged to group D. Of the 108, isolates 67 were Staph. aureus and 38 were B. cereus. The potential of Salmonella spp to grow in weaning foods was also determined on one common factory-produced infant food and one home-made infant food. In both items, Salmonella increased by approximately 4 log units within eight hours and reached counts as high as log 8 cfu/ml within twelve hours.