Studies done in Burkina Faso, Korea and Lebanon also showed presence of E. coli contaminants harboring virulence genes in fresh poultry meat (with prevalence of 43%, 14% and 14% respectively) and that that ETEC, EPEC and STEC were the most common diarrheagenic E. coli detected. This could be because ETEC, EPEC and STEC are much frequently implicated in various food and water borne diseases and they are known contaminants of meat and meat products. Studies, for instance in Canada, Spain and Minnesota U.S.A, have also shown that live chicken and other food animals are known reservoirs of these pathogenic E. coli and therefore contamination could actually be from the animal during evisceration or even from water used during their processing. On the other hand EIEC and EaggEC are not implicated much in food and water borne illnesses and there are no known animal reservoirs for these pathogens hence any primary source of contamination appears to be infected humans. Another reason for this observation in this study is that ETEC had several virulent gene markers compared to the rest and thus could be easily detected more than the others. These results are important as they indicate that apart from being highly contaminated with coliforms which could lead to quick spoilage, raw retail chicken in Nairobi, Kenya is a potential source of food borne illnesses as it carries pathogenic E. coli. This has important implications and present unique challenges for interventions for microbial contamination of retail chicken meats in urban settings.