2.1. Prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA in Beef Livers, Beef and Pork
A total of 195 chilled retail beef and pork meat samples were purchased from several Tulsa area grocery stores. The samples were purchased weekly from January to June of 2010. There were 96 beef samples and 99 pork samples used in this study (Table 1). Fifty of the beef samples were beef livers and 46 were from other beef cuts like steak, shoulder, stew, neck, and bone in, etc. (Table 1). As shown in Table 1, the overall prevalence of S. aureus in beef was 63/96 (65.6%), while 43/99 (43.3%) of pork samples were contaminated with S. aureus. Also the prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus in beef livers 40/50 (80%) was higher than for other beef cuts (50%) (Table 1). So, the prevalence of S. aureus was higher in beef livers (80%) followed by beef (50%) then pork (43%). No isolates of beef livers, beef, or pork samples were positive for MRSA since none of them carried mecA or mecC genes.