Prevalence and Antimicrobial Resistance of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella spp. from cloacal swabs of quail

Food-borne pathogens have increased throughout the world and continue to be a major public health concern. The present study was performed to determine the prevalence of Salmonella spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli from cloacal swabs of Japanese quails at two different farms in Kemaman, Terengganu and to determine antimicrobial susceptibility pattern against eight selected used antibiotics. A total of 83 strains of E. coli, 37 strains of S. aureus and 1 strain of Salmonella spp. were isolated from 100 samples after thoroughly characterized by standard culture method and biochemical tests. The isolates were subjected to antimicrobial resistance test against 8 antibiotics using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Antibiogram study showed that E. coli isolates were highly resistance to cephazolin (68.67%), erythromycin (66.26%) and chloramphenicol (65.06%) while S. aureus highly resistance towards amoxicillin (89.19%) and erythromycin (75.68%). The result shows only one positive Salmonella spp. (2%) that is resistance to tetracycline, doxycycline and cephazolin. Therefore, good personnel hygiene in processing and handling of quails and their products is very important to ensure healthy quail. Excessive use or misuse of antibiotics should be avoided in order to reduce the emergence of multiple antibiotic resistant strains in bacteria.