Beef carcass contamination in a slaughterhouse and prevalence of resistance to antimicrobial drugs in isolates of selected microbial species

Meat contaminating bacteria may be the direct cause of foodborne diseases and represent a potential cause for the drug resistance of human pathogenic agents. The prevalence and resistance to 17 antimicrobial drugs of isolates of selected bacterial species were investigated in 70 swabs of beef carcasses and 70 subsequent samples of beef meat. Molecular techniques (coagulase gene typing Staphylococcus aureus and original gene typing Escherichia coli) were used in the differentiation of isolates. Carcasses were already contaminated after evisceration, least frequently with S. aureus strains (7.5% of samples), most frequently with coagulase-negative staphylococci strains (52.2% of samples). During carcass processing, contamination with resistant or polyresistant strains of S. aureus and E. coli significantly increased (P<0.01). Gene typing isolates of S. aureus and E. coli indicated that the strains probably originated in the processing plant.