Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
Someswari U, Sreedevi B, Vinod Kumar N and Jagadeesh Babu A

Abstract:
Pigs and Pork serve as an important reservoir of Salmonella spp., which is still the second-greatest cause of food-associated hospitalizations globally. Hence, surveillance studies on antimicrobial resistance in Salmonella are essential. The aim of the present study is to determine the prevalence, antibiotic susceptibility profile and molecular characterization to detect resistant determinants in Salmonella spp. isolated from swine in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. Salmonella was identified using cultural and biochemical characteristics and positive isolates were assessed for antibiotic susceptibility and subjected to PCR assay. Collectively, 100 rectal swabs were obtained from pigs maintained on both organized and unorganized farms. We found 164 isolates as Enterobacteriaceae members, of which 28 isolates (17.07%) were Salmonella. Resistance to amoxicillin and colistin was found to be high (100%) followed by ceftriaxone (71.42%), gentamicin (50%), amoxicillin / clavulanic acid (32.14%) and enrofloxacin (10.71%). No isolate was found to be resistant to tetracycline. blaTEM (82.14%) is the most prevalent β – lactamase gene found in the gut microbiota of swine, followed by blaCTX-M group 2 (10.71%), blaCTX-M group 1 (7.14%) and blaSHV (3.57%) genes.