Prevalence, Detection of Resistance Genes and Antimicrobial Resistance of Campylobacter jejuni in Broilers in North Macedonia

Abstract
| Campylobacter jejuni is one of the most important food borne pathogens. Since the start of the 21st century C. jejuni is the leading cause for food borne enteritis. Another point of attention is the change in the antimicrobial resistance of this microorganism towards some critical antimicrobials used in the human and veterinary medicine. In this study samples were taken from three points in the broiler meat production (farm, slaughter line and cold storage of the meat before shipping to the market). A total of 283 samples (cloacal swabs, caeca and carcass swabs) were analyzed for the presence of C. jejuni. The isolates of C. jejuni were confirmed with the conventional microbiological method and with the use of multiplex PCR method. Both methods confirmed the overall prevalence of C. jejuni of 39.2%. In the second part of the study 108 confirmed isolates of C. jejuni were analyzed for the presence of resistance genes (CmeB, Blaoxa-61, tet(O), aph-3-1 and aadE). The analysis in the third part of the study was concentrated on the antimicrobial resistance of the C. jejuni isolates towards three important antimicrobials (ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and tetracycline). The PCR method used revealed highest prevalence for Blaoxa-61 (25%), followed by CmeB and tet(O) genes (19.4%) and aadE with 13.9%. The aph-3-1 gene was not detected in none of the C. jejuni isolates. C. jejuni isolates in this study showed the highest resistance towards ciprofloxacin (63%) and tetracycline (50%) while the resistance towards erythromycin was very low (5.6%).