Prevalence and pattern of antibiotic resistance of Campylobacter spp. in poultry meat in Southern Italy

Campylobacter spp. is one of the most common cause of sporadic human foodborne illness in industrialized countries, and concern has been raised by the emergence of strains showing antibiotic resistance. The aim of this study was to investigate prevalence of Campylobacter spp. and pattern of antibiotic resistance in samples of poultry raw meat sold in retail outlets in Southern Italy.A total of 208 samples of chicken and turkey raw meat collected from randomly selected retail butchers' shops in Catanzaro (Italy) were processed for the presence of Campylobacter spp.Campylobacter spp. contaminated 43 samples of poultry product. The most frequent isolates were Campylobacter coli (34.9%) and Campylobacter jejuni (32.6%). The lowest resistance was found for gentamycin (27.9%) and cloramphenicol (32.6%). We also investigated prevalence of sensitivity to the most important antibiotics and we found that only 20.9% isolates were sensible to both ciprofloxacin and erythromycin.Our findings revealed a reduction in the overall contamination by Campylobacter spp. in raw meat. However, resistant and particularly multi-resistant strains were alarmingly spread, representing an increasing phenomenon that demands enforced interventions at multidisciplinary levels.