Journal Article
Prevalence and antibiotic resistance pattern of Salmonella serovars in integrated crop‐livestock farms and their products sold in local markets
Mengfei Peng; Serajus Salaheen; Jose Alejandro Almario; Bezait Tesfaye; Robert Buchanan; Debabrata Biswas
Environmental Microbiology · Vol. 18, Issue 5 · pp. 1654-1665 · 2016
Abstract
Summary Major concern in the Mixed Crop‐Livestock (MCL) farms, in which livestock and vegetables grown closely in the same facility, is cross‐contamination of zoonotic bacterial pathogens especially Salmonella . To investigate the distribution of Salmonella serovars in MCL and their products, a total of 1287 pre‐harvest samples from various farms and 1377 post‐harvest samples from retail supermarkets in Maryland and Washington D.C. areas were collected and analysed. A total of 315 Salmonella isolates were recovered, with 17.44% and 5.88%, from MCL and conventional farms samples ( P Salmonella was 30.95%, 19.83%, and 8.38% in chicken meat ( P P Salmonella , 34.50% was confirmed S . Typhimurium, followed by S . Heidelberg (10.86%) and S . Enteritidis (9.90%). The overall multi‐antibiotic resistance in recovered Salmonella was 23.81% versus 4.55% in conventional and MCL farms ( P = 0.004) and 66.67% versus 7.76% in conventional and farmers markets ( P Salmonella risks in MCL farms' environment and their products sold in farmers markets and warrants taking necessary measures to limit Salmonella transmission.