Occurrence and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profile of Salmonella spp. in Raw and Ready-To-Eat Foods and Campylobacter spp. in Retail Raw Chicken Meat in Transylvania, Romania

The survey was undertaken to investigate the presence and antimicrobial susceptibility profile of spp. in raw and ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, and spp. in the retail raw chicken meat collected in two counties of Transylvania, Romania. A total of 13.1% (51/388) of the examined food samples were found to be positive, with a distribution of 14.7% (48/326) in the raw food (i.e., pork, chicken carcass, and shell egg) and 4.8% (3/62) in the RTE samples (i.e., sausages, but not ham and salami), respectively. These differences were statistically significant ( = 0.034). The isolates were serotyped as Infantis ( = 19), Typhimurium ( = 11) Rissen ( = 8), Derby ( = 3), Enteritidis ( = 3), Bredeney ( = 2), Brandenburg ( = 1), Gloucester ( = 1), Goldcoast ( = 1), Kottbus ( = 1), and Ruzizi ( = 1). strains were present in 29.4% (10/34) of the investigated chicken samples, and the identified species were (70%) and (30%). From the 14 tested antimicrobials, the isolates were resistant against azithromycin (88.2%), tetracycline (54.9%), sulfamethoxazole (54.9%), ciprofloxacin (45.1%), nalidixic acid (43.1%), ampicillin (35.3%), chloramphenicol (33.3%), tigecycline (25.5%), cefotaxime (13.7%), colistin (13.7%), trimethoprim (7.8%), and gentamicin (2%), resulting in the expression of 21 multidrug-resistant (MDR) profiles. Of 10 isolates, 80% were resistant to ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid, 40% to tetracycline, and 10% to streptomycin and erythromycin, respectively. Our findings indicate that Romanian isolates of spp. and spp., contaminating animal-origin foods, can exhibit MDR patterns, representing a public health risk.