Antibiotic Resistance in Egg Farm Study Raises Concerns
INDIA - About three per cent of egg and environmental samples from farms in Bareilly were found to be positive for Salmonella but the relatively high antibiotic resistance among the bacteria was raised as a concern by scientists carrying out the study.
10 May 2013
3 minute read
By: The prevalence of Salmonella bacteria at egg farms was found to be low by Renu Singh of the Central Avian Research Institute in Izatnagar and co-authors there and at M J.P. Rohilkhand University in Bareilly and Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History in Coimbatore. However, they express concern that the relatively high resistance among the bacteria present in poultry could pose a risk to public health as well as therapeutic problems to consumers.
Their latest study, published in Food Control, was carried out to detect Salmonella spp. contamination of poultry and poultry environmental samples from layer farms in Bareilly and to determine the antibiotic susceptibility profiles and serotype distribution of the isolates.
A total of 720 samples of egg, feed, water, cloaca and faeces were collected and screened for the presence of Salmonella.
Twenty-four (3.3 per cent) of the samples tested were found to be positive for Salmonella. Out of 180 chicken eggs, 120 poultry feed samples, 120 poultry water samples, 120 faecal samples and 180 cloacal swabs, the isolation frequencies of Salmonella spp. were 3.3 per cent, 2.5 per cent, 3.3 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 4.4 per cent, respectively.
Among the isolates, Salmonella Typhimurium was the predominant serovar.
The antibiogram testing revealed differential multi-drug resistance among Salmonella isolates in poultry and poultry environment samples. All the isolates were resistant to clindamycin, oxacillin, penicillin and vancomycin whereas sensitivity was recorded for ampicillin, enrofloxacin and colistin.
As a result, the relatively high resistance among the bacteria present in poultry could pose public health and therapeutic problems to consumers as potential vehicles of resistant Salmonella foodborne infections, concluded Singh and co-authors.
Reference
Singh R., A.S. Yadav, V. Tripathi and R.P. Singh. 2013. Antimicrobial resistance profile of Salmonella present in poultry and poultry environment in north India. Food Control. 33(2):545–548. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2013.03.041
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