High Frequency of Antibiotic-resistant Enterobacterales Contaminating Chicken Viscera in Nigeria: A Trigger for Foodborne Disease Outbreak

Background: Most of the Enterobacterales strains are non-pathogenic; however, there is increasing concern that some antibiotic-resistant strains of Shigella spp., E. coli, Klebsiella spp. and Salmonella spp. could spread from animals and their by-products to humans and cause different diseases. This study aimed to isolate, characterize and assess the antimicrobial resistance profiles of clinically important Enterobacterales isolated from chicken viscera samples in Nigeria. Methods: A total of 200 chicken viscera (intestine, gizzard, liver and crop) samples obtained from various poultry slaughterhouse outlets were analyzed using standard microbiological procedures. Using the disc diffusion technique, the detected Enterobacterales isolates were tested for antibiotic susceptibility. Result: Results showed that Salmonella spp., E. coli, Klebsiella spp. and Shigella spp. were members of the Enterobacterales recovered from the chicken viscera samples with frequency of 88 (44%), 72 (36%), 60 (30%) and 32 (16%) respectively. Additionally, the highest frequency of Enterobacterales isolation was from chicken intestine with a frequency of 92/252 (36.5%). Generally, all the recovered Enterobacterales were resistant (100%) to tetracycline and erythromycin, except for Klebsiella spp in which 16.7% resistance frequency was observed. Resistances were also observed with ampicillin (37.5%-100%), gentamicin (34.4%-66.7%) and ciprofloxacin (12.5%-83.3%). The average multiple antibiotic resistance index (MARI) value of the recovered isolates in this study was 0.7. This study has shown that chicken viscera parts are contaminated by multidrug-resistant (MDR) Enterobacterales such as Shigella spp., E. coli, Klebsiella spp. and Salmonella spp.