Preliminary investigation of the antimicrobial and mechanisms of resistance of Enterobacteria isolated from minced meat in the Northeast of Algeria: The case of butchers from Constantine

Abstract

Food products of animal origin such as fresh meat are easily contaminated by microorganisms if handling, processing and storage conditions are not fully respected. The present study aimed first to evaluate the bacterial load and microbial contamination rates of ground raw beef to identify the main pathogenic flora that dominate and second, to determine the resistance patterns and extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) of isolated Gram-negative strains against certain families of antibiotics. Therefore, 39 samples have been collected from 5 butcher shops located in Constantine province in the North-East of Algeria. The samples were analysed for total bacterial count, presence of total and faecal coliforms, Staphylococci and Salmonella. Furthermore, 23 antibiotics were tested using the diffusion method on Mueller-Hinton agar, towards 22 strains isolates. Bacterial analyses showed a high contamination by total aerobic bacteria, total and faecal coliforms. Escherichia coli, Citrobacter spp., Enterobacter spp., Hafnia alvei, Salmonella pullorum and Staphylococcus spp (except Staphylococcus aureus) were further revealed in some samples. The results of the antibiogram test exhibit multi-resistance to more than eight antibiotics with varied effects. From the whole tested strains isolates, the fully susceptibility effect was for spectinomycin (SPT). This study reveals that the analysed minced meat was found to be highly contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacteria. This study allows concluding that appropriate use of antibiotics in compliance with good hygiene practices is essential to reduce the antibiotic resistance identified in this preliminary study.