Microbial Contamination in Pasteurized Milk and Dairy Products in Zahedan, Iran

Background and Milk has an essential role in human health and its proper consumption is one of the indices of healthy nutritional style. This study was designed to assess the contamination of pasteurized milk and dairy products by different pathogenic microbes in Zahedan, Iran.
In an analytical cross-sectional study, 551 samples including 244 pasteurized milk, 165 pasteurized yogurts, and 142 pasteurized yogurt drinks were randomly obtained during 10 months. They were tested using national standard method.
According to the results, 86.9% and 13.1% of pasteurized milk were found to be acceptable and unacceptable for human consumption, respectively. In this study 81.8% and 95.1% of yogurts and yogurt drinks were acceptable and 18.2% and 4.9% were unacceptable for human consumption, respectively. The main microbial contamination was associated with S. aureus (45.4%). The majority of milk samples unacceptable for human use were observed in summer (23%) and spring (13.3%).
The quality of most of the pasteurized dairy products was found to be good, however, there are still problems in the region with factors predisposing to microbial contamination.