Antibiotic Resistance of Foodborne Microorganisms Isolated in the Republic of Tajikistan

Abstract

Introduction: The sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population is mainly determined by food quality. The World Health Organization is alarmed by the increasing widespread use of antibiotics in animal, poultry, and fish production. The number of drugs used in agriculture is almost twice as high as the number of those used to treat humans. Objective: To establish antibiotic resistance of microorganisms isolated from food products. Materials and methods: Bacteria isolated from 261 samples of food products (eggs, meat and dairy products) on the territory of the Republic of Tajikistan in 2022 were used as materials for the study. Microorganisms (n = 138) were isolated and identified by the bacteriological method using differential diagnostic media. The phenotypic sensitivity of bacteria to nine antimicrobials was determined by the disc diffusion method (DDM). The statistical significance of the results was assessed by calculating the arithmetic mean (M) and standard error of the mean (m) in Microsoft Excel (2010). Results: A total of 138 Enterobacterales (52.2 %) and Staphylococcus (47.8 %) bacteria were tested. Analysis of the phenotypic profile of antibiotic sensitivity of cultures in the genus Staphylococcus showed that most of them were resistant to kanamycin and rifampicin (66.7 %); 54.6 % and 45.5 % were resistant to ceftriaxone and lincomycin, respectively. About 30 % of the staphylococci were resistant to erythromycin, tobramycin, levofloxacin, and gentamicin, while the share of staphylococci resistant to ciprofloxacin was the smallest (15.2 %). Enterobacteria showed high resistance to kanamycin (94.5 %), more than 61.2 % of cultures were resistant to tobramycin; 41.7 % and 33.4 % of cultures were resistant to ceftriaxone and gentamicin. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate the importance of continuous surveillance over the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in food products.