LAUSR

SAMPLING of poultry carcases is used for monitoring bacterial contaminants. For example, neck flap sampling is used for the detection of Campylobacter on chicken carcases (Bare and others 2013) and studies have found a high prevalence of Salmonella in this sample type (Wu and others 2014). However, with the reported rise in antimicrobial resistance, in this study, chicken carcases were tested for the presence of the extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) bla CTX-M by loop-mediated isothermal amplified (LAMP) and culture. bla CTX-M have been a concern in human health as they confer resistance to third-generation cephalosporins, used for the treatment of human bacterial infections and ESBL bacteria often harbour multi-drug-resistant plasmids (Kirchner and others 2013). Escherichia coli from poultry may carry bla CTX-M genes and caecal sampling has been used to assess carriage rates . In a 2008 broiler survey conducted in the UK, it was found that 3.6 per cent of caeca collected at abattoirs were positive for bla CTX-M-positive E coli (Randall and others 2011). A survey from 2014 to 2015, also in the UK, found the prevalence of bla CTX-M-positive E coli in broiler caeca had increased to 28 per cent (Parker and others 2016). Neck flap and caecal samples used in this study …