Prevalence and Antimicrobial Resistance of Salmonella Isolates from Chicken Carcasses in Retail Markets in Yangon, Myanmar

ABSTRACT A cross-sectional investigation was conducted concerning prevalence, antimicrobial resistance, multidrug resistance patterns, and serovar diversity of Salmonella in chicken meat sold at retail in Yangon, Myanmar. The 141 chicken meat samples were collected at 141 retail markets in the Yangon Region, Myanmar, 1 November 2014 to 31 March 2015. Information on hygienic practices (potential risk factors) was retrieved via checklists. Salmonella was isolated and identified according to International Organization for Standardization methods (ISO 6579:2002) with minor modifications. Twelve antimicrobial agents belonging to eight pharmacological groups were used for antimicrobial susceptibility testing (disk diffusion method). Salmonella was recovered from 138 (97.9%) of the 141 samples. The isolates were most frequently resistant to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (70.3% of isolates), tetracycline (54.3%), streptomycin (49.3%), and ampicillin (47.1%). Resistance was also found to chloramphenicol (29.7%), a...