Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus spp. (VRE)‎ from chicken cloacal swab in Gaza Strip poultry farms

Abstract EN

Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci (VRE) is increasingly becoming a major problem during the last years, especially in health care settings.

Poultry is known for being a source of many pathogens that cause infections to human and concerns of transmitting VRE are justified.

The main objective of this study is to determine the presence of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus Spp.

from chicken cloacal swab in Gaza strip farms, Palestine.

Cloacal samples were collected from live broiler chicken from different locations and cultured onto Bile Esculin Agar plates.

All isolates were identified and confirmed by conventional microbiological tests and biochemical characterization was performed using API20 Strep.

Disk diffusion method was used to determine the antimicrobial sensitivity of isolates against six antimicrobial agents.

Enterococcus mund was the most frequently isolated Enterococcus species (31%).

Wide variations were observed in the susceptibilities of the different isolates to antimicrobials.

92% of the isolates were resistance to Tetracycline, followed by Penicillin (79%), Ampicillin (71%), Levofloxacin (61%), Fosfomycin (57%), and Vancomycin (44%).

Results of the present study showed high resistance rates among Enterococci isolates thus the role of chicken as a source of resistant bacteria that may get into human food chain, leading to human infection should be investigated