Prevalence and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles of Salmonella Species in Poultry Farm Environments in Ghana

Abstract

Background: Poultry is one of most consumed meat products in Ghana. Outbreaks of Salmonella spp infections due to consumption of contaminated undercooked poultry products are of high risk to human health. This study determined the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance patterns of Salmonella spp in the poultry environment in the Kwabre East municipality. Method: A total of 114 samples consisting of 38 faecal, 38 dust and 38 feed were taken from a total of 38 farms that consented to the study. Sterile nurse’s caps were worn over the boot to collect faecal and worn over the palm to collect dust samples whilst a sterile spatula was used to collect feed samples. Salmonella was isolated using standard culture and biochemical methods. The antimicrobial susceptibility and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) profile was determined using the disk diffusion method under the guidelines and interpretations published by (CLSI, 2018). Results: In all, five (5/38; 13.2 %) of the farms were positive for Salmonella with a sample level prevalence of 5.3 % (n=6). Layers were predominantly reared (92.1 %) and all the samples positive for Salmonella (n=6; 17.1 %) were from the layers. Salmonella strains were prevalent in the dust (n=3; 50 %) followed by faecal matter and then feed. Antimicrobial agents were widely used by farmers for treatment purposes. Salmonella strains were resistant to tetracycline (100 %), trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole (66.7 %), ampicillin (50 %), chloramphenicol (50 %) and ciprofloxacin (16.7 %). Multi-drug resistance (MDR) was observed among four (n=4; 66.7 %) Salmonella strains. Conclusion: The presence of Salmonella in poultry environment and the emergence of multiple drug resistant is a major risk for poultry product contamination. Finding from this study will guide decontamination policies in targeting Salmonella in the poultry industry. It will be needful to also investigate the molecular mechanism of antimicrobial resistance and characterize the strains using molecular methods.