Prevalence and Antibiotic Resistance Pro�le of Salmonella spp. in Broiler Carcasses From Dominant Poultry Production Areas in Bhutan

Background Salmonella is an important zoonotic pathogen and its infections are considered among the most commonly and widely distributed food-borne illness reported worldwide. Poultry products have been identi�ed as important sources of Salmonella infection to humans. While there have been reports of high prevalence of Salmonella and multidrug resistance in imported chicken meat in Bhutan, the safety of nationally produced broiler meat with regards to Salmonella contamination is not known. In the absence of national surveillance of Salmonella in food animals in Bhutan, this study assessed the prevalence of Salmonella and its serotypes in broiler chicken carcass in the dominant poultry production areas of the country and determine its antibiotic susceptibility patterns. in in reported 13% of Salmonella with the that is and good quality. a for Salmonellosis in no studies conducted to establish Salmonella prevalence in produced Evidence on the epidemiology of Salmonella in produced chicken meat in Bhutan, including data on antibiotic resistance patterns of Salmonella isolates, will help improve the understanding of occurrence and burden of Salmonellosis at food animal level and subsequently leverage the need for routine monitoring and surveillance in poultry. study was carried out to assess the prevalence of Salmonella and its serotypes in broiler chicken meat in high poultry production areas in Bhutan and investigate antibiotic sensitivity pro�les of recovered Salmonella poultry serotypes. The �ndings will help inform the national Salmonella control plan to avert the public health burden associated with Salmonella infection. S. S. S. Our results also indicate a high proportion of Salmonella isolates were sensitive to gentamycin 73.91% (17 isolates) and streptomycin 56.52% (13 isolates) but high resistance to tetracyclines 95.65% (22 isolates), trimethoprim 86.96 (20 isolates) and amoxicillin 65.20 (15 isolates). Our study �ndings were in consistent with the �ndings of (Murugkar et al., 2005) which labelled doxycycline, ampicillin, amoxicillin and tetracycline resistant to Salmonella isolates but, sensitive to nor�oxacin, enro�oxacin, gentamicin and cipro�oxacin. In the Asia region, high resistance of Salmonella was reported for tetracycline (97.14%) and chloramphenicol (94.28%), in chicken farm in Bangladesh (Alam et al., 2020; Mridha et al., 2020), trimethoprim sulfamethoxazole (70.3%) and tetracycline (54.3%) in chicken meat in Myanmar (Moe et al., 2017), sulphonamide compounds (98.9 %) and tetracycline (96.9 %) in chicken carcass in Nepal (Goncuoglu, Ormanci, Uludag, & Cil, 2016). The emergence of high resistance of Salmonella to tetracycline, amoxicillin and trimethoprim antimicrobials in the study may be contributed to indiscriminate use of these antimicrobials in poultry production as growth promotion, prophylactic and therapeutic purposes (Nourouzi, Mirzaii, & Norouzi, 2004) and Bhutan is no exception. As per the drug distribution report of Bhutan, 2018, the tetracycline trimethoprim A cross-sectional study conducted from 2016 to assess the prevalence of Salmonella and its serotypes in broiler chicken meat in high poultry production areas in Bhutan and to investigate their antibiotic susceptibility pro�le. The two major areas that produce and supply commercial chicken broilers in the country – the gewogs of Samphelling and Darla located in the Chukha district – were selected for this investigation (DoL, 2015). The study focused on sampling chicken broilers produced in commercial poultry enterprises. For the purposed of the study, commercial chicken broiler farms were de�ned as farms which have more than 2,000 birds with a permanent shed. As per the sampling frame, there were a total of �ve commercial broiler farms in both the study areas ful�lling the commercial farm de�nition. All �ve commercial broiler farms (Farm A, B, C, D and E) were included in the study. These enterprises were run by different farmers under different production management. We collected farm biosecurity management data including number of years in operation, presence of perimeter fencing, presence of disinfection points, presence of biosecurity sign boards, presence of visitor logbook, source country of DOCs, vaccination and deworming protocols, mortality and treatment record, source of feed, treatment of water, presence of a bio pit, utilisation of own farm equipment, use of PPE (ie. gloves, mouth covers, boots and apron), presence of meat processing facility, cleaning and disinfection protocols (animal shed, farm disinfection, disinfectant use, premise clean, drainage clean). The information on farm biosecurity management was collected by the lab technicians using pretested questionnaires. The �ling of questionnaires involved an interview, observations and validation methods. of as a The epidemiological analyses of antibiogram using WHONET which is an tool that facilitates of the local epidemiology of microbial and of antimicrobial agents Each farm-level biosecurity indicator was scored a value of “1” when the response represented an adequate biosecurity practice and “0” when the response was less adequate. A total farm-level biosecurity score was estimated as the sum of all responses to the questionnaire. Results were compared descriptively against estimates of prevalence.