Prevalence of Campylobacter, Enterococcus and Staphylococcus aureus in slaughtered camels

Abstract

The contribution of camels and their products (meat and offal) as potential reservoirs of foodborne pathogens is far from elucidated. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of camels as potential sources of different foodborne agents and to determine their antibiotic resistance profile. For this reason, one hundred apparently healthy camels admitted to the Zagazig abattoir (Sharkia province, Egypt) for slaughtering were studied. Three different specimens were collected from each camel including fresh faeces, raw meat and liver which were processed to determine the presence of different foodborne pathogens using standard bacteriological techniques. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was also performed using the disc diffusion method. The occurrence of Campylobacter in the faeces, raw meat and liver were 20%, 33% and 15%, respectively, with the most prevalent C. coli (21%) followed by C. jejuni (0.7%) and C. lari (0.7%). Enterococcus spp. was isolated at 50%, 40%, and 43% from the examined faeces, meat and liver, respectively, with E. faecalis (24%) as the most widely identified bacterial spp. The respective specimens showed typical colonies of S. aureus with 15%, 45% and 25%, respectively, with an overall prevalence 28.3%. S. aureus was found to colonise workers hands (40%; 10/25), followed by E. faecalis (20%) while Campylobacter spp. was not detected in any of the tested workers’ hands. All recovered foodborne agents were found to be susceptible to enrofloxacin and resistant to rifampicin. The high loads of the pathogenic, as well as indicator bacteria in the raw camel meat, could indicate unhygienic conditions at the abattoir.