Quality of chicken carcasses from slaughterhouses in the State of Minas Gerais: occurrence of Campylobacter jejuni and antimicrobial resistance profile

A campilobacteriose é reconhecida como uma zoonose emergente de distribuição mundial, sendo diagnosticada com frequência nos países desenvolvidos, e tem como principal agente causal o Campylobacter jejuni. A maioria dos casos está associada ao consumo ou manuseio de carne de frango contaminada. Existem poucas informações oficiais sobre a ocorrência de Campylobacter em frangos de corte no Brasil. Considerando a escassez de trabalhos em Minas Gerais, objetivou-se estudar a ocorrência de C. jejuni em carcaças de frango resfriadas de abatedouros sob inspeção do Serviço de Inspeção Federal (SIF) e do Instituto Mineiro de Agropecuária (IMA), por meio de identificação morfológica, bioquímica e molecular; avaliar a qualidade da água do sistema de resfriamento dos abatedouros; isolar e identificar os contaminantes entéricos; avaliar o perfil de resistência antimicrobiana dos microrganismos isolados durante o estudo, e obter informações sobre as granjas, abatedouros e processos envolvidos no abate das carcaças das amostras avaliadas. Das 30 unidades amostrais avaliadas, 36,7 % apresentavam-se contaminadas com C. jejuni. Dentre as 150 carcaças de frango avaliadas, 25 (16,7 %) apresentaram-se contaminadas, sendo 22 (88 %) de abatedouros com SIF e 3 (12 %) eram do IMA. A ordem das coletas não apresentou diferença significativa (p > 0,05). Houve diferença significativa (p 0.05), however, significant differences (p < 0.05) between the type of inspection being the most frequent contamination of carcasses in slaughterhouses with inspection of SIF. Counts ranged between 3.6 and 36 NMP.g-1. None of the water samples by immersion coolers tested positive for Campylobacter jejuni. All of the 20 strains of C. jejuni strains tested showed resistance to different types of antimicrobials tested, some of which showed 72.2 % resistance, and can become a problem for the medical clinic. All strains were resistant to antimicrobials Aztreonam, Cephalothin, Cefoxitin, and trimethoprim sulfa vancomycin, and 95 % of the strains were resistant to Nalidixic Acid, Cefotaxime, Cefuroxime and Ciprofloxacin. All strains tested were susceptible to Polymyxin B. Other antibiotics showed different degrees of sensitivity to Chloramphenicol (95 %), Gentamicin (85 %), Imipenem (75%) and Amoxicillin + Clavulanic Acid (75 %). The contaminants were commonly isolated Proteus mirabilis, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. All contaminants isolates were resistant to Nalidixic acid and Vancomycin was greater sensitivity to Aztreonam. It was also observed that some establishments do not meet the recommendations for quality assurance of the slaughter process, especially with regard to temperature and chlorine content of the water immersion chillers. These data serve as a warning as to the need to establish, as soon as possible, a possible protocol for prevention and control of both C. jejuni as other enteric contaminants in chicken carcasses to ensure adequate health food standards to protect consumer health and to alert health authorities about the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, which may compromise the effectiveness of drugs in the treatment of bacterial infections in humans and animals. Finally, it is suggested that further studies should be conducted to determine the origin of the high resistance observed in all the isolates