EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report presents antimicrobial resistance data for isolates collected as part of FSA study FS102121: A microbiological survey of Campylobacter contamination in fresh whole UK-produced chilled chickens at retail sale. The isolates were obtained from chicken at retail sale during the period from July 2015 to May 2016.
Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli isolates (548) recovered from retail chicken using the EN/TS/ISO 10272-2 standard enumeration method (applied with a detection limit of 10 cfu per gram of skin or per outer packaging swab sample tested) were tested to determine the antimicrobial resistance profiles of the cultures.
Ciprofloxacin resistance was identified in around half of the C. jejuni isolates (437) and C. coli isolates (108) tested. None of the C. jejuni and only 1.9 % of the C. coli isolates were resistant to erythromycin and just over three quarters of isolates were resistant to tetracycline. All isolates tested were sensitive to gentamicin. Multidrug resistance defined as reduced susceptibility to at least three antimicrobial classes was found in 1.5 % of all isolates examined. The proportion of multi-resistant isolates was significantly higher within C. coli (7.4 %) compared to within C. jejuni.
Overall, the proportions of antimicrobial resistant isolates found in this study were similar to that reported in the previous survey year (2014-2015) with erythromycin resistance continuing a decreasing trend. Multi drug resistance (MDR) in C. coli was lower compared to that found in the previous survey year. MDR in C. jejuni was not detected and thus likely to be very low as reported in the dataset from the first survey year (1 %). However, the data demonstrated significantly higher proportions of ciprofloxacin resistance compared to older data from the 2007/2008 FSA survey and in the CLASSP survey (2010).
It is recommended that trends in antimicrobial resistance in Campylobacter isolates from retail chickens continue to be monitored.
FoodWorld 