The unhealthy birds which are slaughtered at poultry retail shops may be transferring the pathogen to the healthy meat via butcher's block, clothe (used for cleaning carcass), weighing scale, table, knife and drum in which they are bled after slaughter. The tools which are used in butchers' chicken sale point ; different objects in their shop; the feed they give to birds and bird droppings ; all were analyzed and not surprising they were found heavily contaminated with Salmonellae. Salmonellae is an enteric organism and at chicken sale points contamination to objects through birds' intestine is not much surprising. Therefore a strong need to push the pressure on government to devise laws and set standards for clean premises at chicken sale points. Extensive and irrational use of antimicrobials in human and veterinary sector in the treatment, prophylaxis and as feed additive have made this organism resistant to many of the commonly used antimicrobials.These resistant organisms are being transferred to human body due to the consumption of contaminated poultry meat. Therefore the Salmonellae in humans show resistance to many antibiotics. It is assumed that Salmonellae can transfer resistant genes via bacterial conjugation, transformation and transduction.As a result it is becoming resistant to many antimicrobials. Therefore a strong check on irrational use of antibiotics is needed.
The purpose of current study was to estimate the prevalence of antimicrobial resistant Salmonellae at chicken sale points in Lahore city. In current study 250 samples of 8 different types were collected from different poultry meat sale points in Lahore city.The selection of sale points was random. The samples included50 samples of each poultry feed and bird droppings. 150swab samples of butcher wooden blocks, table, drum( in which the birds are slaughterd), butcher's balance, knife , cloth (used to clean block, knife, table and chicken meat) were also collected from different chicken meat sale pointsin Lahore city.The Samples were analyzed for the presence of Salmonellae by culturing and biochemical tests.The percentage of Salmonellae positive samples inwooden block, weighing balance, cloth, birds' droppings, drum, bird feed, knife and table surface was 44, 24, 36 ,16, 32, 8, 28, 20 respectively.Overall prevalence of Salmonellae was 23.2 %. The isolated Salmonellae were then checked for antimicrobial resistance against 18 antimicrobials by using disk diffusion method. All the Salmonellae isolates were resistant to atleast four antimicrobials. 49 different antimicrobial resistance patterns were found.