Antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli isolated from poultry workers, patients and chicken in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia

The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coil isolates from faeca l samples from 117 poultry industry. workers, 100 patients and 119 healthy chicken were compared. Resistance of E. coli chicken isolates to ampicillin , chloramphenicol, gentamicin, spectinomycin, tetracycline and trimethoprim + sulphamethoxazole (TMP + SMX) (range 57% - 99.1%) were significantly hig her than those isolated from patients (range 21.9% - 71.4%) and workers (ra nge 35% - 71.8%). However, for drugs not used in poultry, such as amoxicill in + cluvalanate (AMX + CLV), ceftazidime and nitrofurantoin, resistance ra tes of chicken isolates (range 0% -2.6%) were significantly lower than thos e of patient isolates (range 8.7% - 30%). Resistance to: spectinomycin reac hed 96% in E. coil chicken isolates and 71% in organisms isolated from huma ns. Use of this drug in Saudi Arabia is mostly limited to veterinary purpos es. Multidrug resistance is alarmingly high in all groups but was highest i n chicken isolates (77.4%). Serotyping of E. coli isolates showed that 27% of the :organisms isolated from patients were overlapping with 10.9% of the chicken isolates, indicating the possibility of chicken being a source of the resistance pool for humans. We therefore call for the banning of antibi otics in the poultry industry as growth promoters and recommend that their use be restricted to treating infections.