Prevalence and Antimicrobial Resistance of Salmonella Enterica Serovar Infantis Isolates from Poultry: a review

Salmonella Infantis (S. Infantis) is one of the most important zoonotic bacteria, which has become one of the leading public health problems in the world, especially in developing countries. The prevalence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) S. Infantis strains has increased worldwide and can be prevented by controlling the use of antibiotics in poultry. The purpose of this review article is to discuss the status of S. Infantis antibiotic resistance, especially, its prevalence, detection methods and resistance mechanisms in isolates from poultry samples using search engines such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed. Based on our review, S. Infantis was the most prevalent serovar in poultry accompanied by an enhancing number of resistance genes in these strains. The use of different genotypic and genetic methods can rapidly detect the presence of Salmonella in suspicious specimens to prevent disease and epidemics. Genes such as invA, hilA and fliC were most commonly used genes in the detection of Salmonella, and other genes were viaB, spv, flijB, rfbJ and 16Sr RNA. The results of studies emphasize that poultry could act as reservoirs of MDR with a high tendency for dissemination. Resistance to the beta-lactam family is an important issue, because antibiotics such as beta-lactams are the best candidates for the treatment of salmonellosis, and this has raised concerns in the treatment of invasive Salmonella.  These findings highlight the need to find ways to manage and reduce the impact of antibiotic use in poultry and prevent the transmission of antibiotic-resistant S. Infantis to the human food chain and to find potential alternatives to antibiotics.