Strain typing and antimicrobial susceptibility of Albany isolates from duck farms in South Korea.

is distributed worldwide and is a common cause of bacterial food poisoning in humans and a serious public health problem. Although duck meat consumption has recently increased in Korea, studies on the epidemiological relationship between contamination in duck farms are scarce. serovar Albany isolates recovered from duck farms were analyzed using two typing methods - IR Biotyper® (IRBT) and multilocus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA). The clustering results were compared with the epidemiological survey findings and the antimicrobial resistance profiles. From April 2019 to October 2020, 20 individual feces per farm from 5-6-week-old ducks were collected repeatedly from 105 duck farms. spp. isolated from duck feces were identified using PCR and multilocus sequence typing to investigate the prevalence and distribution of the serovars. The prevalence of was 19%, and . Albany was the predominantly recovered isolate. The . Albany isolates underwent antimicrobial susceptibility testing to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration. MLVA and IRBT methods established relatedness and diversity among the . Albany isolates. Multidrug-resistant Albany was distributed in all the farms. Antimicrobial resistance profiles reflected the duck farm characteristics and isolates recovered from the same farm showed an identical profile. Isolates repeatedly recovered from the same farm also showed identical IRBT clusters and MLVA groups. These findings suggest that the isolates remained on the duck farm and re-infected new duck flocks. Thus, proper cleaning and disinfection is required before the farms are repopulated.