Abstract

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There is increasing concern about the public health risks associated with routine and indiscriminate use of antibacterial agents in raising livestock worldwide. Our study investigated the antibiotics resistance of bacterial isolates obtained from four poultry farms located in a commercial livestock farm settlement in Ilara-Epe, Lagos State, Nigeria. The antibiotic resistance pattern of readily available and commonly used antibiotics against 92 bacterial strains isolated from the selected farms was determined by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of antibiotics for the bacterial isolates were determined by a standard two-fold serial broth microdilution method using Mueller–Hinton broth. The results showed high resistance values to ampiclox (97.5%), amoxicillin and zinacef (95.1%), augmentin (94.1%), and streptomycin (82.2%). Multiple drug resistance (MDR) was observed for both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial isolates at 86.3% and 90.2% respectively. Also, 24 (26.4%) of the bacterial isolates were completely resistant to all tested antibiotics in the study. The majority of identified bacterial isolates were Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Micrococcus luteus. All the antibiotics used in this study showed high MICs values against the test bacterial isolates. Our findings have added to existing evidence that poultry farms habour antibiotic resistance bacteria (ARB). These ARB may pose a public health risk as they may be pathogenic to humans and animals and also contribute to the flow of antibiotic resistance genes in the ecosystem. Hence, there is the need to avoid the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in poultry farming, especially as growth promoters.

Keywords: Poultry farms; Antibiotics; Antibiotic Resistance; Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (ARB)