Occurrence and Antimicrobial Resistance of Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli Isolates in Apparently Healthy Slaughtered Cattle, Sheep and Goats in East Azarbaijan Province

The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial resistance bacteria in meat-producing animals, especially ruminants, represents a major problem for human and veterinary medicine and also could increase the patients' morbidity and mortality. the current study aimed to identify the occurrence and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of salmonella spp. and escherichia coli isolated from slaughtered ruminants in east-azarbaijan province. in this study 160 samples (40 sheep, 40 goats and 80 cattle) were examined to isolate the enteric pathogens. the antibiotic resistance was determined by kirby-bauer disc diffusion method using 12 antibiotics. a total of one hundred and twenty bacteria were obtained and most of these isolates belonged to these following genera: escherichia coli (25%), proteus (18.8%), salmonella spp. (8.8 %), pseudomonas spp. (7.5%) and yersinia spp. (6.3%). eight (57.1%) of 14 salmonella spp. isolates and 26 (65%) of 40 e. coli isolates showed resistance to more than four antibiotics, called multiple antibiotic resistance (mar). overall, the obtained results emphasize the need for a surveillance and monitoring system to emerge drug resistance in all pathogenic microorganisms in ruminant and other animals.