| dc.description.abstract | Salmonella, a gram-negative facultative rod shaped bacterium: '--'in the family Enterebacteriaceae, is found in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals. Salmonella causes salmonellosis, which manifests as two diseases in humans: enteric fever (typhoid) and acute gastroenteritis. Salmonellae are disseminated to the external environment, such as water, soil and plants, through human or animal excretion. Fish farming has become an important practice in Western Kenya where two species, namely Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) are reared for subsistence and for commercial sales. It has however been established that fish can serve as carriers or infectious source of pathogens such as Mycobacteria, Streptococcus iniae, Vibrio spp., aeromonads and Salmonella spp. Currently, there is a rise in the incidence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria including Salmonella. This has become of critical concern in the world, with about 1.3 billion cases and 3 million deaths reported annually due to multidrug resistant (MDR) Salmonella. In Kenya, the prevalence ofMDR Salmonella has been rising steadily since it was first reported between 1997 and 1999. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of Salmonella and analyze their antimicrobial profile in farmed fish and fish ponds in the community around Maseno University in Maseno division in Western Kenya. Nineteen Salmonella isolates were obtained from the flesh and intestines of fish (n=55) and water collected from eleven fish farms. Two isolates were Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and 4 were Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium due to the presence of malate dehydrogenase (mdh) gene (261bp). Ninety five percent of the Salmonella isolates were resistant to Ampicillin, 89% to kanamycin, 84% to chloramphenicaJ, 63% to streptomycin, 31% to tetracycline, ]6% to gentamicin, and 11% to cotrimoxazole. BlaTFM, a gene that confers resistance to p-Iactams and cephalosporins was amplified in 61% Salmonella isolates. The incidence of Salmonella spp was 45% in the fish ponds and 15.7%'fish. These findings indicate that fish from fish farms around Maseno University contain MDR Salmonella which may infect humans. It is therefore important that the farmers improve the hygiene of their fish farms and that consumers prepare their fish properly to cut the cycle of infection from man to fish and back to man. | en_US |
