A SURVEY OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE AMONG E. coli STRAINS ISOLATED FROM POULTRY IN KARACHI

Abstract

Studies were carried out to investigate the incidence of multiple antibiotic resistance among E.coli (total 152) isolated from poultry in Karachi to eight commonly used antibiotics: arnpicillin (A), chloramphenicol (C), gentamycin (G), anamycin (K), neomycin (N), polymyxin B (P), streptomycin (S) and tetracycline (T) at the levels of 50 µg/ml, 100 µg/ml and 500 µg/ml. Tables of the results are given, showing the number of resistant strains of different patterns of antibiotic resistance at different levels. A comparison of antibiotic resistance to different number of antibiotics and the frequency of resistance to individual antibiotic at different levels is also reported. The highest frequency of resistance was against tetracycline whereas the lowest frequency of resistance was against gentamycin, Thirty R plasmids were isolated from the resistant strains and will be reported elsewhere.