Study the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli O157 strains isolated from poultry meat in Isfahan in the summer of 2019

Poultry meat is considered one of the sources of Escherichia coli O157. The present study was performed to evaluate the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of E. coli O157 isolates of poultry meat samples presented in Isfahan. In total, 500 meat samples were collected from diverse poultry samples supplied in Isfahan and evaluated for E. coli O157 using microbial culture. Suspicious isolates were confirmed by PCR test. The antibiotic resistance pattern of isolates was investigated using the antibiotic disk diffusion test. Forty-four out of a total of 500 samples (8.80%) were contaminated with E. coli O157. The highest level of contamination was related to duck meat (16%), and the lowest was related to quail meat (3%). There was a statistically significant difference of P <0.05 between the sample type and the prevalence of E. coli O157. Escherichia coli O157 isolates had the highest antimicrobial resistance to tetracycline (97.72%), ampicillin (95.45%), penicillin (95.45%), and gentamicin (72.72%) antibiotics. The highest variation in antibiotic resistance was found in E. coli O157 strains isolated from duck meat. Due to the high prevalence of antibiotic-resistant E. coli O157 strains in poultry samples, especially duck meat, consumption of these foods in raw or uncooked form, in addition to the transfer of antibiotic-resistant strains to human communities, can lead to lethal food poisoning.