Occurrence and antibiotic resistance of Salmonella sp. in smoked products from local street stalls around Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan / Noorlis Ahmad, Fadhlul Khaliq Ab Patah and Nurul Ain Hasani

Smoked food was one of the most authentic dishes in Malaysian cuisines. However, local consumers were still unaware on the hygienic level of these smoked products. Nowadays, the smoked products were smoked in an open space that allowed the contamination of bacteria on the food. This study aimed to determine the occurrence and antibiotic resistance of Salmonella in the smoke catfish and meat at the local street stalls in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan by MPN-PCR methods. The microbial concentration of Salmonella sp. in smoked catfish was 2.4 x 10-8 MPN/g in smoked catfish and 2.9 x 10-7 MPN/g in smoked meat and were confirmed by culturing on selective agar of Salmonella Shigella agar. The prevalence of Salmonella sp. was found to be 68% in both samples by MPN-PCR approach. Salmonella sp. were 100% detected in smoked catfish followed by smoked meat by 44% respectively. All the positive isolates from MPN-PCR were continued with antibiotic susceptibility to determine the resistance level of Salmonella sp. towards selected antibiotics. As result, the isolates showed a multi-resistance patters from one to four antibiotics tested with MAR indices ranging from 0.25 to 1.00. The outcome indicated a high rate of foodborne pathogens which indicated the need to create the awareness on the safety and proper handling of smoked products to minimization of any potential health hazard caused by this foodborne pathogen.