Abstract

Aeromonas spp. was commonly isolated from ground meat and chicken samples at the retail level. From January to September 2009, 92 samples of chicken and 158 samples of minced meat for sale in retail outlets from regions under supervision of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS, Iran) were analyzed for the prevalence of Aeromonas species. Aeromonads were isolated from 80 (32%) of the samples analyzed, including 53 (57.6%) of chicken and 27 (17%) of minced meat. The isolation rate in chicken was significantly higher than minced meat (p<0.001). The highest contamination was found in chicken withAeromonas caviae and minced meat samples contaminated with Aeromonas hydrophila. A total of 105 strains were isolated belonging to five species: A. hydrophila 43 (41%), A. caviae 43 (41%), Aeromonas sobria 16 (15.3%), Aeromonas jandaei 2 (1.8%) andAeromonas veronii 1 (0.9%). The antibiotic resistance pattern shows that more than 90, 80, 70 and 60% of the strains were resistant to Ampicillin, Cephalothin, Tetracycline and Nalidixic acid, respectively.

Key words: Aeromonas, chicken, meat, antimicrobial resistance, Iran.