Emergence of New Delhi metalo-β- lactamase (NDM-1) – producing multidrug resistant gram negative bacteria from poultry in Nigeria

Abstract

The New Delhi metallo-beta- lactamase (NDM-1) gene is an emerging well acknowledged public health threats among human and animal pathogens worldwide. Since its first description in 2009, a lot of animal and human associated reports have been documented around the world, including some parts of Africa. There is however a dearth of information on it in Nigeria, particularly from food animals.

The current work therefore screened 55 Gram negative bacteria isolated from cloaca swabs of both healthy and sick birds from commercial poultry houses in Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria: that were multi drug resistant and particularly resistant to 3 of or all of, cefepime, ceftazidime, ceftriaxone and amikacin for the presence of bla NDM-1 gene in a PCR assay. The Gram negative bacteria were. identified by conventional bacteriological procedures and with16s RNA PCR method. In all, 7.3% (4/55) of the pathogens including; 2 Proteus mirabilis, 1 Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 1 Enterobacter cloacae were positive for the gene.

The result shows that poultry could be a possible source of spreading the public health important gene to other animal and human pathogen in Nigeria, thus constituting a serious public health hazard in terms of treatment failures in animal and human, should there be transmission of the gene. A nationwide surveillance is advocated for the purpose of instituting a well scientific informed preventive measures.