Retail chicken meats as potential sources of Clostridioides difficile in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Introduction: Presence of Clostridioides difficile in stool of food birds and animals is a risk for contamination of their meats to become potential sources of human infection. The main virulence factors of C. difficile are its resistance to antibiotics, production of toxins and spores. As far as I know, this is the first study to evaluate C. difficile prevalence in chicken meats, its toxigenic activities and antibiotics sensitivity patterns in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia.
 Methodology: Totally, 250 raw chicken meat samples were examined. Standard microbiological and biochemical procedures were used for C. difficile isolation and identification. The suspected colonies were tested by L-proline and C. difficile test kits then confirmed by Vitek 2 compact system. Xpect C. difficile toxin A/B test was used to detect A/B toxins production. Antibiotics susceptibility patterns were detected by Epsilon tests.
 Results: C. difficile was isolated from 11/250 (4.40%) chicken meat samples; 5/65 (7.69%) legs, 3/65 (4.61%) thighs, 2/60 (3.33%) wings and 1/60 (1.67%) breasts (p = 0.4). All isolates were non-toxigenic. Although all isolates were vancomycin sensitive, some isolates were intermediate/resistant to metronidazole, tetracycline, clindamycin or moxifloxacin antibiotics with variable degrees.
 Conclusions: C. difficile might contaminate retail chicken meats. Although low level of contamination by non-toxigenic strains was detected, chicken meats should be investigated as C. difficile infection sources for humans especially elders, immune-compromised and long terms wide spectrum antibiotics-used persons. Decreased sensitivity of C. difficile to antibiotics is emerging.

Raw Animal Meats as Potential Sources of Clostridium difficile in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia

“…Furthermore, Freeman et al (2015) reported the resistance to vancomycin and metronidazole among 953 C. difficile isolates as 0.87 and 0.11 %, respectively. Moreover, Muratoglu et al (2020) and Taha (2021) detected only one out of 22 and 11 C. difficile isolates was resistant to metronidazole, respectively. On the other hand, Ersoz and Cosansu (2018) The variability of reported results regarding antibiotic susceptibility of C. difficile isolates from animal meat origins can be explained by exposure of the food animals to different antibiotics during farm rearing or differences in the genetic characters of the strains.…”

Clostridioides difficile in Foods with Animal Origins; Prevalence, Toxigenic Genes, Ribotyping Profile, and Antimicrobial Resistance

“…Antibiotic resistant strains may originate from the slaughterhouse environment and contaminated staf. In studies conducted in China [50], Saudi Arabia [51], and Iran [52], C. difcile strains harbored a high resistance rate toward metronidazole, erythromycin, tetracycline, clindamycin, and ciprofoxacin. However, other studies conducted in Korea [39], Turkey [37], Manitoba [53], and Italy [54] showed the high susceptibility of C. difcile strains toward metronidazole and rifampicin.…”