antimicrobial resistance in salmonella enterica isolated from pork, chicken, and vegetables in southern thailand

conclusions these results show that retail meat and vegetables can serve as a reservoir of multiple antimicrobial resistant salmonella and can probably be a potential route of transmission of these pathogens into human population. results the prevalence of salmonella in retail pork, chicken meat, and fresh vegetables were 82% (34/41), 67.5% (27/40), and 46% (37/80), respectively. the salmonella isolated from pork, and vegetables were most resistant to tetracycline (77 and 33%) while the salmonella isolated from chicken meat was most resistant to streptomycin (92%). thirty-one samples (68%) isolated from pork and thirty-two samples (84%) isolated from chicken meat were of mdr strains. whereas only 7 samples (29%) isolated from vegetables exhibited resistance to two or more antimicrobial drugs. objectives this study aimed to investigate the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance profiles of salmonella in meat and vegetable samples taken from phatthalung province, thailand. materials and methods pork and chicken meat and fresh vegetable samples were randomly selected from retail markets in phatthalung province. salmonella isolation and identification were performed on the same day of sample collection. serovar typing was performed by slide agglutination according to the kauffman and white scheme. antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by disc diffusion method, and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns were analyzed by the whonet 5 program. background salmonella is a common causative agent of food-borne illness in humans. infection by this pathogen is usually due to ingestion of contaminated insufficiently cooked foods. despite the fact that several studies of the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance of salmonella have been conducted in thailand, there is limited data available concerning the more rural areas of the country.