ABSTRACT:
In recent decades, Aeromonas hydrophila has emerged as a foodborne bacterial pathogen of public health concern, especially as it exhibits resistance to the major chemical sanitizers commonly used in the food industry. Meanwhile, this pathogen may be spread from diseased fish flesh through the contamination of equipment contact surfaces during food processing, thus posing a food safety risk. Thise determined the susceptibility profiles of retail fish-borne A. hydrophila isolates to 24 common antibiotics and five major sanitizers used in the food industry. The polymerase chain reaction technique was used to confirm all A. hydrophila isolates to the species level, and the agar diffusion method was applied to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility profiles. All isolates were confirmed to be A. hydrophila species. This bacterium was observed to have resistance to multiple antibiotics, with the highest resistance index being for those of the beta-lactam class. Additionally, the isolates showed high resistance to four of the five chemical sanitizers tested, with the highest resistance rate being toward sodium hypochlorite. The results suggested that A. hydrophila isolates with multiple resistance to the antimicrobials and main sanitizers used in the food industry can be found in retail fish sold in the Cuiabá region of Mato Grosso, Brazil.
Key words:
fish; microorganisms; pathogen; antibiogram; susceptibility to sanitizers