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Milk and dairy products have significant importance to human nutrition during different stages of life but they can also act as vehicle for spread of various milk borne diseases. India is a developing country and faces greater challenges in this aspect due to poor knowledge of processing or storage of dairy products which is responsible for transmission of a number of milk borne zoonotic diseases viz., tuberculosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis etc. These diseases pose severe threat to human life and some of them could be fatal as well. There is a need to detect these pathogens which can transmit due to insufficient pasteurization of milk or milk products or through post-pasteurization contamination, in order to successfully avoid transmission of these diseases. Proper pasteurization, surveillance and public awareness about milk borne zoonotic diseases can contribute significantly in reducing incidence of these diseases. This review highlights the important milk borne diseases and their remedy for control and prevention of these diseases.
Keywords: brucellosis, campylobacteriosis, pasteurization, salmonellosis, tuberculosis
Milk occupies a unique position among the many foods, because it is the sole food for humans as well as other mammals during initial stage of their lives. Historically in many cultures, milk and milk products have been considered as an important part of diet for adults also because they contain all those constituents which are important for adult nutrition (Maijala, 2000). There has remained a long tradition of consuming bovine milk and dairy products in human nutrition (Haug et al., 2007). Apart from being the perfect food for human from birth to senility, milk could also prevent or reduce risks of many nutritional deficiency diseases (Kalkwarfetal., 2003; Marshall etai., 2003).
As we are aware of the importance of milk and dairy products in a balanced diet, it is also true that if consumed unpasteurized, they can also present a health hazard due to possible contamination with any pathogenic organism. These organisms can also originate from clinically healthy milch animals or from environmental contamination occurring during collection and storage of milk (Angulo et al., 2009). Thus, milk acts as a vehicle in spread of many zoonotic diseases i.e. those diseases or infections which are transmitted naturally from vertebrate animals to human beings and vice-versa (WHO, 2010). There are a...