South Asian Journal of Research in Microbiology

Food poisoning and other human health effects can arise from the consumption of pork, which despite being a valuable source of high quality protein and essential nutrients may harbor pathogenic bacteria if improperly handled. This study was carried out to evaluate and determine the antibiogram of bacteria isolated from roasted pork meat sold in Abakpa Enugu. Eighty (80) roasted pork meat samples were collected from four different vendors in Abakpa Enugu. The samples were inoculated on MacConkey agar, Mannitol salt agar and Salmonella- Shigella agar respectively and incubated at 37⁰C for 24hrs.  Morphological analysis and Biochemical tests were carried out on the isolates and the organisms were identified as E. coli, Salmonella spp. and Shigella spp. Out of the eighty (80) samples, 39 (48.75%) were positive while 41(51.25%) were negative. It was observed that out of the 39 (48.75%) positive samples, 16(41.03%) isolates were E. coli. 13(33.33%) were Salmonella spp while 10(25.64%) were Shigella spp. Molecular analysis using 16srRNA gene amplification confirmed the identity of the isolated organisms as Salmonella enterica, Shigella sonnei and Escherichia coli, with pairwise similarities of 96.24%, 97%, and 93.98% respectively. Antibiotic susceptibility test revealed that all the 16 E. coli isolates were susceptible to ofloxacin while 14 isolates (89.7%) were susceptible to augumentin and perfloxacin respectively. Intermediate susceptibility was commonly observed with sparfloxacin, gentamicin, streptomycin and ciprofloxacin, where approximately 7-8 isolates (43.8 – 50.0%) showed reduced sensitivity while high resistance were recorded against septrin, amoxicillin, and chloramphenicol with 11-13 isolates (68.8 – 81.2%) exhibiting resistance. It was also observed that out of the 13 Salmonella enterica isolates, 11 – 12 isolates (84.6 – 92.3%) were susceptible to ciprofloxacin, perfloxacin and amoxicillin and intermediate susceptibility was predominantly observed with gentamycin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol and sparfloxacin where 6 – 7 isolates (46.2% - 53.8%) showed reduced sensitivity. Also, high resistance was observed against augumentin and septrin, with 10 – 11 isolates (76.9 – 84.6%). Also, of the 10 Shigella sonnei isolates that were tested, all the isolates (100%) were sensitive to ciprofloxacin, 8 isolates (80%) were also sensitive to perfloxacin while 7 (70%) isolates were sensitive to amoxicillin. Intermediate susceptibility were also observed with gentamicin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol and sparfloxacin where 5 – 7 isolates (50.0 – 70%) showed reduced susceptibility. High resistance was observed against augumentin and septrin with 6 -8 isolates (60 – 80%) showing resistance. These findings emphasize that roasted pork meat can serve as a vehicle for the transmission of foodborne pathogens to the consumers of these products. This highlights poor hygienic practices among pork vendors while handling and processing the products. Hence, there is urgent need for improved hygienic practices during meat processing and vending since these contaminated products can be detrimental to the health of the consumers. However, the antibiotic susceptibility profiles revealed varying levels of susceptibility, intermediate responses and resistance among the isolates suggesting that these antibiotics remain effective against the tested organisms. Of greater concern was the high resistance seen among some test antibiotics which limits treatment options and underscores the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.