Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance patterns of from healthy broiler chickens: A potential public health threat.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and toxin type of isolated from broiler chicken faeces and determine its antibiotic resistance (AR) profile. A total of 480 broiler chicken faeces were collected from four different chicken abattoirs in North West Province, South Africa. Faecal samples were pooled (5 per pool from the same farm), resulting in 96 pooled samples. The disc diffusion method was used for documenting phenotypic AR, whilst PCR was used for the identification of and detection of toxin and antibiotic resistance genes. All 52 isolates identified as spp. using the gene PCR assay were also positive for the gene which is specific for . All 52 isolates harboured the gene responsible for encoding alpha toxin. Additionally, 7 (13.5 %) of these isolates were found to carry the gene. None of the isolates harboured , , and genes. All isolates in this study exhibited AR to ampicillin, followed by tetracycline, clindamycin, and chloramphenicol with resistance rates of 100 %, 71.15 %, 46.15 %, and 34.62 %, respectively. isolates contained tetracycline encoding genes, namely (A) and (W), chloramphenicol encoding genes which are: R, I, and II and beta-lactamase encoding genes including , , and . None of the isolates carried . This is the first study to characterize and determine its antimicrobial susceptibility phenotypically and genetically in food-producing chicken in South Africa, proving that animals may be sources of resistant strains of .