Meta-analysis of Escherichia coli O157 prevalence in foods of animal origin in Turkey

The present study aims to analyze the prevalence of O157 detected in foods of animal origin by meta-analysis. The prevalence of O157 detected in the different studies was combined to provide a common prevalence estimate, and heterogeneities between studies were investigated. The study material consisted of 49 studies investigating O157 prevalence in a total of 9600 food samples, including milk and dairy products, red meat and products, poultry meat and products, and cold appetizers between the years 1997-2019 in Turkey. In the meta-analysis, the Der-Simonian-Laird method was used. Meta-analyses were performed using the R 3.6.1. As a result of the meta-analysis, the common prevalence of O157 was 0.024 (0.018-0.029). As a result of the Egger’s Linear Regression Test, the study samples were found to be biased (t-value=6.092, P