Prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus in Retail Chicken Meat Samples in Jalandhar, Punjab

Staphylococcus aureus is a very common food born pathogenic bacteria found in raw and under cooked chicken meat samples and its consumption may lead to the infection and/or toxicity in consumers. Therefore, this study was designed to study the prevalence and antibiotic sensitivity pattern of S. aureus in chicken meat samples collected from, retail slaughter houses at Jalandhar, Punjab, India. During this study, 84 fresh raw chicken meat samples were inoculated in mannitol salt agar for the selective isolation of S. aureus, later were characterized by a combination of microscopic and biochemical tests. Results of the study revealed that the out of 84 samples, 40 samples were containing S. aureus, which is 46.61% of total samples. Further, S. aureus isolates showed resistant towards more than two antibiotics, while few isolates were found to be multiple drug resistance (MDR). These results suggest that S. aureus is highly prevalent in retail meat in Jalandhar and many isolates are resistant to commonly used drugs.