Division of Food Microbiology, National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation, Cheongju 28159, Korea (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1859-5703 [S.K.]).
Department of Food and Animal Biotechnology, Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5812-3394 [S.R.]).
J Food Prot. 2020 Oct 1;83(10):1673-1678. doi: 10.4315/JFP-20-150.
Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in poultry meat pose a threat to public health. This article is the first to report the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli in retail poultry meat labeled with various claims of antibiotic use in Korea. A total of 719 E. coli strains were isolated from 1,107 raw poultry (chicken and duck) meat samples purchased from nationwide retail stores between 2017 and 2019. All strains were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility with a broth microdilution method. The prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant E. coli in chicken was significantly higher than that in duck for almost all antibiotics tested, and 87.9% of E. coli strains in chicken samples were multidrug resistant. The most prevalent types of antimicrobial resistance in these E. coli strains from poultry meat were to nalidixic acid (75.7%), ampicillin (69.1%), and tetracycline (64.0%), consistent with national sales data for veterinary antibiotics in the Korean poultry production industry. Organic or antibiotic-free and conventional chicken products were equally likely to be contaminated with antimicrobial-resistant E. coli. Contamination may occur during slaughtering and subsequent processing, and antibiotic use is permitted in certain cases under organic or antibiotic-free poultry standards. Therefore, close surveillance is required throughout the chicken production chain to prevent the spread of antimicrobial-resistant E. coli strains.
禽肉中存在的耐药细菌对公共健康构成威胁。本文首次报道了在韩国，经标签标注有使用抗生素的各种说法的零售禽肉中，耐抗生素大肠杆菌的流行情况。2017 年至 2019 年期间，从全国零售商店购买的 1107 份生禽（鸡和鸭）肉样本中，共分离出 719 株大肠杆菌。采用肉汤微量稀释法对所有菌株进行了抗生素药敏试验。在几乎所有测试的抗生素中，鸡肉中耐药大肠杆菌的流行率明显高于鸭肉，鸡肉样本中 87.9%的大肠杆菌菌株为多药耐药菌。来自禽肉的这些大肠杆菌菌株中最常见的耐药类型是萘啶酸（75.7%）、氨苄西林（69.1%）和四环素（64.0%），这与韩国禽肉生产行业兽用抗生素的国家销售数据一致。有机或无抗生素和常规鸡肉产品同样可能受到耐药大肠杆菌的污染。污染可能发生在屠宰和随后的加工过程中，并且在有机或无抗生素的禽肉标准下，在某些情况下允许使用抗生素。因此，需要对整个鸡肉生产链进行密切监测，以防止耐药大肠杆菌菌株的传播。
