Occurence and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profile of Salmonella from Dairy Farms in and Around Meki Town, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross sectional study was conducted on dairy farms in Meki town and its surrounding from January 2016 to April 2016 with the aim of this research work was to isolate, identify and determine the in-vitro antimicrobial susceptible profile of Salmonella in an apparently healthy lactating cows and farm equipmentA total of 304 samples were aseptically collected from udder milk, feces of cows, pooled bucket swab, pooled tank swab, tank milk and pooled milker′s hand swab.From the total of 304 samples examined, 11.2% were found to be Salmonella positive following the standard techniques and procedure out lined by International Organization for Standardization. There was no statistically significant association among sample types. However, there was statistically significant difference in Salmonella isolation frequency of lactating animals from small and medium size farms. All isolates were resistant to at least one or more antimicrobials tested. Accordingly 97.06%, 91.18%, 73.53%, 73.53%, isolates showed resistance to ampicillin, amoxaciilin, streptomycin, naldixic acid respectively.Multiple antimicrobial resistances (resistance to three or more antimicrobials) were detected in 97.05%. This study clearly indicates that Salmonella isolates shedded from feces can contaminate the milk, the farm equipments and personnel and result in bad hygienic standards of the farms. The current finding also revealed that there was higher percentage of multiple antimicrobial resistant isolates. Therefore, addressing the issue of antimicrobial resistance should be taken as one of the most urgent priorities otherwise it will be very difficult to cure clinical diseases if unwise use antimicrobials are practiced at the farm level.