Prevalence and Antibiotic Susceptibility of Campylobacter species Isolated From Chicken and Beef Meat

Background: to study prevalence of campylobacter spp. in chicken and beef meat, and determine the drug susceptibility of strains, 450 samples in tehran, iran were investigated. objectives: this study aimed to determine the prevalence and the antimicrobial resistance of entropathogenic campylobacter strains, especially c. jejuni isolated from raw chicken and beef meat in tehran- iran. materials and methods: out of 250 chickens and 200 beef meats, 121(26.8 %) contaminated cases with campylobacter strains were isolated. campylobacter was isolated from a significantly larger number of chickens (44%) than beef meats (5.5 %) (p < 0.05). results: from all isolated campylobacter organisms, 93 (76.8%) species were identified as c. jejuni and 28 cases (23.1%) as c. coli. susceptibilities of 121 strains (93 c. jejuni and 28 c. coli) were determined against 12 antimicrobial drugs using the disk agar diffusion method. resistance to nalidixic acid (75%) and ciprofloxacin (50%) was an alarming finding, moreover, 32.6% of isolates was resistant to tetracycline, 10.8% to ampicillin, 29.3% to colisitin and 26.1% to amoxicillin. the highest sensitivity was seen to erythromycin (95 %) and gentamicin (96%). conclusions: these results showed that a high proportion of chicken and beef meat in iran is contaminated with campylobacter, particularly with campylobacter jejuni. the high rate of contamination, especially chicken is a significant public health concern. most of the isolates were resistant; therefore, human infection with campylobacter spp. via consumption of these products is possible.