Antibiotic resistance patterns of salmonella typhi isolated from ready-to-eat vegetable salads hawked in Kano Metropolis

Abstract

A total of 200 samples of Ready – to – Eat (RTE) vegetable salads were aseptically purchased randomly from hawkers in eight Local Governments of Kano State, Nigeria. The aerobic mesophilic bacterial count was conducted according to standard techniques. Samples were further screened for S. Typhi and C. jejuni using standard procedures. Isolates of the two bacterial species were subjected to antibiotic sensitivity testing using Kirby Buer disk diffusion technique. The total aerobic bacteria count ranged from 1.200x10⁵ to 1.70x10⁵ cfu/g. A total of 36 bacterial isolates from the RTE vegetables were identified as C. jejuni (18%) and 97 (48.5%) as S. Typhi. Ninety percent (90%) of the isolates were found to be resistant to the assayed antibiotics. C. jejuni was highly sensitive (98.4%) to gentamicin. TEM genes were detected in 40% of the C. jejuni isolates while 60% were detected in S. Typhi isolates. RTE vegetable salads hawked in study areas are contaminated with C. jejuni and S. Typhi and the isolates were resistant to most of the antibiotics tested. It is recommended that hazard analysis and critical control point of ready to eat food should be observed.