Antibiotic Resistance and Plasmid Profiles of Bacteria Isolated from Abattoir Effluents around Ikpoba River in Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Abattoirs are known all over the world to pollute the environment either directly or indirectly from their various processes. The aim of this work is to determine the bacterial load, antibiotic resistance and plasmid profile of resistant bacteria isolated from government and private abattoirs around in Ikpoba River in Benin City. Bacteria and coliform count were done using pour plating method. The total viable bacteria counts ranged 4.2x10⁵±1.8 - 1.5x10⁶± 0.7 cfu/ml and 1.3x10⁶± 0.1-3.1 x 10⁶ ± 0.5cfu/ml for government and private abattoir respectively, The coliform count ranged from 2.7x10⁵± 0.1 - 3.8x10⁵±1.4 cfu/ml and 5.5x10⁵±0.3 - 9:2x10⁵±0.4 cfu/ml for government and private abattoir respectively. Escherichia coli, Streptococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeriginosa, Enterobacter aerogenes, Micrococcus luteus, Bacillus subtills and Staphylococcus aureuswere isolated and identified by cultural, morphological and biochemical characteristics. Susceptibility of the microbes was determined. The isolates were resistant to most of the commonly used antibiotics. Plasmid profile of isolates was also determined. The profile study shows that all resistant bacterial isolates harbored plasmid mediated resistance to antibiotics which was confirmed by plasmid curing. Therefore this research showed contamination of abattoirs effluents with antibiotic resistant bacterial isolates. This specially calls for treatment of the wastewater before discharging into the river.

Keywords: Effluent, abattoir, antbiotic resistance, plasmid profiles