Antibiotic Resistance Pattern of Staphylococcus aureus Isolated from Seafood

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogen known to cause
hospital, community acquired and foodborne illness
with varying susceptibility to antibiotics. The
selective pressure due to the use of antibiotics along
with horizontal and vertical gene transfer has
resulted in the evolution of multidrug resistant S.
aureus. The purpose of the study was to determine
the antibiotic resistance pattern in S. aureus isolated
from seafood of Kerala, India. One hundred and
thirty three S. aureus isolates obtained during 2012
to 2015 were included in this study. Antibiotic
susceptibility testing was performed with a set of 20
antibiotics representing eleven classes of antibiotics
by standard disk diffusion assay. The study revealed
that 90.9% of the S. aureus isolates were resistant to
at least one class of antibiotics. Resistance was found
among 33.8, 27.8, 17.3, 6.8, 3.8, 0.7 and 0.7% isolates
to one, two, three, four, five, six and eight classes
of antibiotics respectively. Multidrug resistance was
found in 29.3% of the S. aureus isolates with
resistance to antibiotics ranging from 3 to 8 classes
of antibiotics. The study reveals that S. aureus
isolates were sensitive to aminoglycosides and
phenicols.