Preliminary evaluation of COBRA, an automated DEFT instrument, for the rapid enumeration of micro-organisms in cultures, raw milk, meat and fish

Abstract

A preliminary evaluation of an automated direct epifluorescent filter technique instrument, COBRA, showed that it enumerated rapidly bacteria in cultures, raw milk, meat and fish. The correlation coefficients of regression lines with corresponding pour plate counts were 0·99 (pure cultures), 0·81 (raw milk) and 0·91 (raw meat and fish), respectively. The system was simple to use, one operator could process > 100 samples/h and results were available in < 1 h.