Bacteria Load and Antimicrobial Resistance Profiling of Bacteria Isolated from African Salad Consumed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Aim: This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and their resistant genes in African salad commonly consumed in West Africa. Background: The rising prevalence of foodborne infections poses a serious challenge due to the development of antimicrobial-resistant strains. Methods: The study used a cross-sectional approach to sample the food from different vendors across the two major local government areas (LGAs) in the Port Harcourt Metropolis: Obio/Akpor and Port Harcourt City. Conventional and molecular techniques were used to isolate pathogens and detect the resistance genes. Results: The findings from this study showed the most prevalent bacteria as Proteus species (30%) with Peter Odili Road (98.6±62.5 colony forming unit (CFU)/ml) as the location with the highest bacterial load while Borokiri (36.9±34.0 CFU/ml), had the lowest level of bacterial load. The microbial load based on the local government area showed that Obio/Akpor (65.6±51.7 CFU/ml) has a higher microbial load than Port Harcourt City (63.1±47.7 CFU/ml). The bacteria isolated showed the highest multiple antimicrobial resistance (MAR) indices in Woji (0.65±0.20) and the lowest indices in Ikoku (0.39±0.17). The average MAR indices of bacteria in Obio/Akpor (0.56±0.16) were marginally higher than those in Port Harcourt City Local Government (0.54±0.19). Proteus species and Providentia huaxiensis had the highest level of MAR index of 0.80. In considering the prevalence of beta-lactamase genes that were detected, there was a significant burden (p=0.0002) of the blaTEM gene observed in Obio/Akpor LGA 7 (63.4%) compared to the PHC LGA 4 (36.6%). Conclusion: Overall, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in Abacha tend to be present in remote towns with high human activities.