Microbial Food Safety Risk to Humans Associated with Poultry Feed: The Role of Irradiation

Abstract

Animal feed has been linked to human illness through the food chain as a result of food borne bacteria and more recently the risk of foodborne antibiotic resistance. This study investigated the extent to which radiation can be used as an intervention to improve the safety and quality of poultry feed in terms of food borne pathogens and antibiotic resistant microbes. Mean counts of control feed samples were Log10 5.98 for total viable count (TVC), Log10 4.76 for coliform count (CC), Log10 2.89 for Staphylococcus aureus count (STC), and Log10 4.57 for yeast and mold count (YMC) and Salmonella spp. (SC) was not detected (ND). All counts were within permissible levels except for CC (Log10 4.76) which was above the permissible limit of ≤ log10 4.0. Identified bacteria isolates were Enterobacter cloacae (54.5%), Bacillus cereus (27.3%), and Klebsiella pneumoniae (18.2%). All (100%) isolates exhibited multidrug Resistance (MDR) with Bacillus cereus being the most resistant (to 9 out of 11 antibiotics) followed by Enterobacter cloacae/Klebsiella pneumoniae (4 out of 11 antibiotics). Several resistance patterns were observed with PEN/AMP/FLX being the commonest (100%), followed by ERY (90.9%), TET (72.7%), CRX (66.6%), CTX (45.4%), CHL/CTR (36.4%), GEN (27.3%), and COT (18.2%). Klebsiella pneumoniae showed zero resistance to GEN/CHL/CTR/CTX/CRX while Enterobacter cloacae and Bacillus cereus exhibited zero resistance to GEN and COT, respectively. The most effective antibiotic against Gram negative bacteria (Enterobacter cloacae and Klebsiella pneumoniae) was gentamicin while cotrimoxazole was the most effective against Bacillus cereus (Gram positive). Radiation processing of 5kGy totally eliminated all microbes including MDR food borne pathogens. In view of this, we recommend low dose radiation decontamination as a measure to mitigate against the possible food safety and public health risks to humans associated with poultry feed.

Quantitative LAMP and PCR Detection of Salmonella in Chicken Samples Collected from Local Markets around Pathum Thani Province, Thailand

“…The LAMP, qLAMP, and qPCR methods detected Salmonella on all the chicken samples collected from the markets because the sensitivity of these methods is high. However, at least 100 colonies of Salmonella can cause the disease [ 23 , 24 ]. Even though all the chicken samples were found to be infected with Salmonella , the colony number was very low.…”

The occurrence of drug-resistant bacteria and screening the possible presence of residual antibiotics in poultry feed samples

“…( Table 3). The presence of antimicrobial traits in the poultry feed samples projects the nondiscriminatory use of antibiotics for feed production as stated in their study by Mahami et al (32).…”

“…The use of antibiotics has successfully and economically improved poultry efficiency, but the resulted increase in the number of antibiotic-resistant strains that can be transmitted through the food chain from poultry to humans can have serious public health consequences (1). Multidrug resistance arises in bacteria due to the accumulation of resistance genes from other bacteria, especially when they expose to an environment containing antibiotic residues (32,35). Hence, the current study attempted to tract the presence of antibiotic residues in the feed samples by agar well diffusion technique.…”

Biofilms of pathogenic bacteria in pig industry

“…Low productivity, morbidity and death of farm animals are often associated with contamination of raw materials and feed by pathogenic microorganisms (salmonella, pasteurellosis, listeria, hemophilia, enteropathogenic types of Escherichia coli, clostridia), which pose a threat to the health of not only animals but also humans (Crump et al, 2002;Bintsis, 2018). Despite the successes of recent years in optimizing the feeding of farm animals, the role of microbial contamination of feed in reducing production efficiency requires additional attention and careful and comprehensive study (Maciorowski et al, 2007;Mahami et al, 2019). Quantitative and qualitative composition of the microflora of pig feed is very diverse and is formed under the influence of many factors (Pereyra et al, 2010).…”