Occurrence of Vibrio spp. in sea fish, shrimps and bivalve molluscs harvested from Adriatic sea

One hundred and seventeen samples of sea fish (100), shrimps (10) and bivalve molluscs (7) were sampled at fish markets (100 samples) and hotels (17 samples) along the sea side in Croatia within the period from May to July 2000. The samples were tested for the presence of Vibrio spp. Vibrio spp. was isolated in 23 (19.65%) of total count of samples. The most frequently found were V. parahaemolyticus (9.40%), V. vulnificus (6.84%) and V. alginolyticus (3.42%). A significantly larger number of positive findings involved the samples collected at hotels (35.29%) as compared to those collected at fish markets (17.00%). The isolation was conducted by a conventional cultivation with the enrichment in alkaline peptone water and on TCBS Kobayashi agar (“Biolife”).