DOI: 10.36347/sajb.2015.v03i02.016

Pages: 207-213

Animals are known reservoirs of enteric bacteria and recent reports about the isolation of antimicrobial resistant bacteria from food animals have raised concern about the potential for food borne and zoonotic transmission. This study investigated the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern Klebsiella species isolated from duck cloaca from Igoli, Ogoja, Cross River State Nigeria. A total of 60 cloacal swab samples (2 from each) were asceptically collected from the cloaca of 30 duck from Igoli, Ogoja, Cross River State, Nigeria and immediately transported to Applied Microbiology Laboratory, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki where they were analyzed by standard procedures. Isolates were properly identified as Klebsiella species using cultural/morphological characteristics, Gram reaction, biochemical characteristics and motility test and further subjected to Antimicrobial susceptibility Testing using the Kirby Bauer disk diffusion technique; their ESBL-production ability was as well tested. The results revealed a total of 14 isolates of Klebsiella species out of which 6(43%) were ESBL-producers whereas 8(57%) did not produce ESBL. Out of the 14 isolates, 12(85.7%) were resistant to Ceftazidime whereas 64.3% were susceptible to each of Aztreonam and Cefotaxime followed by Cefuroxime (57.1%). This study showed that Klebsiella, constituting members of pathogenic bacteria are present in food animals such as duck. This organism is not only present in high percentage (46.7%) but also resistant to conventional antibiotics as well as expresses the presence of ESBL. Therefore, as a result of high public threat revealed by this result, a good personal and environmental hygiene is hereby recommended and the indiscriminate use of conventional antibiotics in animal production should be prohibited.