Abstract:
Poultry is one of the communal sources of human infection with Salmonella. A cross-sectional
study design was conducted from January 2022 to June 2022 to isolate and identify
Salmonella from exotic chicken eggs and cloaca swabs and to determine the source of
contamination and also antimicrobial susceptibility patterns at Kombolcha districts in East
Hararghae. For this study, 384 eggs (eggshell and content) and 300 cloaca swabs were
collected from the market and 12 small-scale poultry using a simple random sampling
technique. The entire sample was cultured for Salmonella using standard laboratory methods
and its susceptibility pattern to four antimicrobial drugs was tested following the CLSI
guidelines using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion assay. A questionnaire survey was also
carried out on 90 respondents from farm owners, egg sellers, and consumers. As the results
showed, the majority of the respondents stored eggs in open containers. 28% of eggs
consumers showed their preference for raw eggs, while 71.8% do not prefer raw eggs. From
respondents that practiced drunken raw eggs, 47.4% reported that they faced a problem like
nausea and vomiting, or abdominal discomfort, while 52.6% reported not having the problem
after drunken raw eggs. From A total of 1068 samples (eggs and cloaca swabs), Salmonella
was isolated from 32.95%. Of this, 29.42% was detected from egg (17.7% from egg shell and
11.7% from egg content) and 42% from cloacal swab. Isolation of Salmonella in egg content
collected from the market (34%) was significantly higher when compared to egg content
collected from the farm (19.7%)(P<0.05). The difference observed between egg shell (17.7%)
and egg content (11.7%) was also a statistically significant. Drug susceptibility test result on
66 isolated salmonella showed that, 100% showed susceptibility to ciprofloxacin; whereas,
100 % of them developed resistant to amoxicillin. Ciprofloxacin, and streptomycin, showed
good inhibition on the bacteria; whereas, all of the isolated salmonella showed resistant
against amoxicillin. Hence, strict hygienic and good management practices should be
implemented to reduce the public health risks arising from Salmonella.
