Abstract

The antibiogram of bacteria of public health importance isolated from processed roasted beef and chicken (suya) sold in Umuahia, Abia State was investigated. Thirty samples of beef and chicken suya were bought from three different suya spots in Umuahia. The aerobic bacteria plate count was conducted using the pour plate method for the isolation and enumeration of isolated colonies Isolates were identified by standard cultural and biochemical tests while antibiotic resistance was determined by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. The total viable bacteria count ranged from 5.2 x 10⁶ to 2.31 x 10⁷ CFU/g. The seven (7) bacterial genera identified were; Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter spp., Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Proteus spp. and Citrobacter spp.  Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus recorded highest percentage occurrence of 12(40%) and 7(23%) respectively, while Proteus spp., and Citrobacter spp. had the lowest percentage of occurrence of 1(3.33%) each. These isolates were found to be resistant to a number of popular antibiotics. Staphylococcus aureus was susceptible to chloramphenicol and gentamycin but resistant to amoxicillin, erythromycin, ciprofloxacine, streptomycin. The gram-negative bacteria were resistant to all the antibiotics used. The Multiple Antibiotic Resistance Index (MARI) ranged from 0.4 to 0.8 for the organisms. The resistance of most of these isolates to antibiotics highlights the reason for the increasing failure in the treatment of bacterial infections. This study revealed that beef and chicken suya sold in these areas studied were microbiologically unsafe and below acceptable standard for human consumption.