Some of our daily foods are loaded with antibiotic-resistant bacteria,
a new study has pointed out.
“We have isolated multiple antibiotic-resistant bacteria from chicken and mung sprout samples, which can have serious health concerns”, says Archana Rath, professor at the University of Mumbai and the lead author of the study.
Her team collected fourteen
samples of raw chicken from retail poultry shops and thirteen ready-to-eat
sprouted mung bean samples from local street vendors of Mumbai. Chicken samples
were procured within 2-3 hours of slaughter and sprouted mung beans were less
than 72 hours post sprout. Using standard lab methods, scientists isolated
bacteria from these food samples and tested them for their sensitivity to
various antibiotics. They found that many food-derived bacteria were resistant
to one or more clinically used antibiotics- penicillin, rifampicin, streptomycin,
ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, cefotaxime, erythromycin, kanamycin, gentamicin,
doxycycline, neomycin, and trimethoprim.
“Abundance of opportunistic pathogens like Acinetobacter, Enterobacter, Klebsiella in mung, and Acinetobacter, Enterococcus, Serratia, Providencia in chicken could be a serious health issue. Acinetobacter is a clinical pathogen known to carry genes for antimicrobial resistance”, they say.
The
study was published in the July issue of the journal Current Science.
According to the authors, most
of the bacteria in the mung were similar to those found in wastewater treatment
plants and manure treated agro ecosystems, which suggested that manure-treated
soil or contaminated irrigation water are the potential sources of pathogens in
mung. With chicken, they say, the high numbers of resistant bacteria could be
because of the rampant use of antibiotics as a veterinary therapy in livestock
industry and farms.
Dr. Rath told India Science Wire, “sprouted mung is generally consumed raw hence the presence of resistant bacteria in it is a matter of concern. Although chicken is cooked before consumption that kills microbes, it can still spread antibiotic resistant bacteria to raw salads or veggies in the vicinity especially in fast food joints and restaurants where hygiene may not always be maintained”, she says.
She
stressed that similar studies need to be done on other food types to ascertain
their antibiotic resistance load and quality.
This study was done by Onkar
Naik, Ravindranath Shashidhar, Devashish Rath, Jayant Bandekar, and Archana
Rath at the University of Mumbai and Food technology division and Molecular
Biology Division of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Mumbai. The work was
supported by the Department of Atomic Energy-Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences.
This story was published by Scroll, India Science Wire, Indian Science Journal, Newsroom24X7, Outlook India, and BiotechTimes.
