Isolation, Identification And Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Salmonella From Selected Poultry Farms In Debre Zeit.

A cross sectional study was conducted from December 2013 to May 2014 with the objectives to isolate, identify and determine the antimicrobial resistance pattern of salmonella species from selected poultry farms in Debre zeit, Ethiopia. From a total of 196 cloacal swabs collected 50 (25.5%) were found to be positive for Salmonella organisms using culture method, and 15 (7.6%) Salmonella isolates were confirmed using biochemical tests. All culture and biochemical positive samples were further confirmed by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) through amplification of histidine transport operon as a target gene for the presence of salmonella isolates. From culture and biochemical positive samples, gel electrophoresis of the PCR product revealed the presence of 496bp segments in 13 (6.7%) Salmonella isolates. The statistical analysis has revealed a significantly association between different age groups of chickens (X 2 = 10.56; P = 0.005) and farms (X 2 =10.74; P=0.013) with the percentage of Salmonella isolates. Most of the Salmonella isolates were found to be resistant against commonly used antimicrobials such as Sulfisoxazole, Chloramphenicol and Ampicillin followed by Tetracycline, Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid and Cephalotin and more than half(69.3%) of the isolates were found to be multi-drug resistant. The high prevalence of resistance to antimicrobial agents found in this study might be attributed to uncontrolled use of antimicrobial agents as growth promoters in poultry farms. Therefore, proper treatment of chickens using appropriate antibiotics is then quite essential.