Prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Salmonella serovars in ducks, duck rearing and processing environments in Penang, Malaysia

An investigation was carried out to determine the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Salmonella serovars in ducks, their rearing and processing environments in Penang, Malaysia. A total of 531 samples collected from wet markets and duck farms, were examined from August 2009 to October 2010. The overall prevalence of Salmonella serovars was 23.5% (125/531). The 125 Salmonella isolates belong to 10 different serovars namely Typhimirium (29.6%), Enteritidis (12.0%), Gallinarum (2.4%), Braenderup (12.0%), Albany (11.2%), Hadar (20.8%), Derby (6.4%), Weltevreden (1.6%), Newbrunswick (3.4%) and London (0.8%). Salmonella serovars also showed various resistance patterns against 13 different antibiotics. All the serovars were resistant to erythromycin but susceptible to cephalothin, gentamicin and ceftriaxone. Plasmids were detected in 91 (72.8%) of the isolates with sizes ranging from 1.4 to 23.1 Kbp. Our findings provide baseline information on the distribution of Salmonella serovars in ducks, their rearing and processing environments, and indicate that ducks should be considered as an important source of food-borne pathogens.