Prevalence and Antibiotic Resistance Profiles of Campylobacter jejuni Isolated from Poultry Meat and Related Samples at Retail Shops in Northern India

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Abstract
Campylobacteriosis is the common gastrointestinal disease worldwide. However, in many parts of the world, including India, the impact of campylobacteriosis is less commonly investigated. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility profiles of Campylobacter jejuni in raw poultry meat and poultry-related samples at retail shops in a region of Northern India. A total of 400 samples of chicken meat (150), chicken intestine (150), feathers (50), and chopping boards and knives (50) samples were screened for the presence of C. jejuni by selective enrichment culture followed by selective plating on mCCDA and also by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) after selective enrichment. The highest prevalence of Campylobacter contamination (38.6%) was observed in chicken meat followed by chicken intestine (24.0%). C. jejuni was detected in 14.0% of chopping boards, knives, and feather samples by culturing method. The hipO gene based PCR detection yielded 36.0% C. jejuni from chicken meat samples; in other samples, however, the prevalence of C. jejuni was observed similar to that of cultural method. The antibiotic susceptibility profiles confirmed drug resistance among 97% of C. jejuni isolates, with 84.1% of C. jejuni isolates resistant to co-trimoxazole followed by cephalothin (81.1%) and tetracycline (59.4%). Low incidence of resistance (6.9–8.9%) was observed against nalidixic acid, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, gentamicin, and azithromycin. Resistance to multiple drugs (≥4) was recorded in 31.6% of the strains. The findings of this study demonstrated high prevalence of drug-resistant C. jejuni in raw chicken meat and intestinal isolates. The high occurrence of C. jejuni in chicken meat might be due to cross contamination as a result of slaughtering and poor hygienic conditions. Implementation of monitoring/surveillance programs to monitor the prevalence of multidrug-resistant Campylobacter spp. in food production animals, particularly, poultry in semiurban regions, as well as main cities in India, is highly required for better public health protection.

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