Virulence and antimicrobial resistance profile of non-typhoidalSalmonella entericaserovars recovered from poultry processing environments at wet markets in Dhaka, Bangladesh

The rapid emergence of virulent and multidrug-resistant (MDR) non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) enterica serovars are a growing public health concern globally. The present study focused on the assessment of the pathogenicity and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiling of NTS enterica serovars isolated from chicken processing environments at wet markets in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total number of 870 samples consisting of carcass dressing water (CDW), chopping board swabs (CBS), and knife swabs (KS) were collected from 29 wet markets. The prevalence of Salmonella was found to be 20% in CDW, 19.31% in CBS and 17.58% in KS, respectively. Meanwhile, the MDR Salmonella was found to be 72.41%, 73.21% and 68.62% in CDW, CBS, and KS, respectively. All isolates were screened by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for eight virulence genes, namely inv A, agf A, Ipf A, hil A, siv H, sef A, sop E, and spv C. The S . Enteritidis and untyped Salmonella isolate harbored all virulence genes while S . Typhimurium isolates carried six virulence genes except sef A and spv C. Phenotypic resistance revealed decreased susceptibility to ciprofloxacin, streptomycin, ampicillin, tetracycline, gentamycin, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and azithromycin. Genotypic resistance showed higher prevalence of plasmid mediated bla TEM followed by tet A, sul 1, sul 2, sul 3, and str A/B genes. Harmonic and symmetrical trend was observed among the phenotypic and genotypic resistance patterns of the isolates. The research findings anticipate that MDR and virulent NTS enterica serovars are prevailing in the wet market environments which can easily enter into the human food chain. There was a resilient and significant correlation existent among the phenotypic and genotypic resistance patterns and virulence genes of Salmonella isolate recovered from carcass dressing water, chopping board swabs, and knife swabs ( p < 0.05), respectively.