An Investigation of Potential Health Risks from Zoonotic Bacterial Pathogens Associated with Farm Rats

Abstract

Background: The 21st century has seen a wide range of diseases resulting from zoonotic infections, of which bacterial infections have led to outbreaks of food-borne diseases. Aim: The study looks at bacterial pathogen carriage by farm rats and their antimicrobial susceptibility, with the view of providing insights for antimicrobial surveillance. Method: Farm rats of Rattus rattus species where randomly collected alive from farms in Al-Ahsa using food baits. They were anaesthetize with urethane within 4 h of collection and were unconscious for the collection of samples. Basic bacteriological culturing methods were used for culturing of bacterial isolates on selective media while the Vitek 2 compact automated system (BioMerieux, Marcy L’Etoile, France) was used for bacteria identification and antimicrobial susceptibility test. Obtained data were analysed using chi-square and paired t-test with significant difference between sensitive and resistance to antimicrobial susceptibility taken at P