Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella isolated from fish, shrimp, lobster, and crab in Iran

The objective of this study was to determine the Salmonella prevalence, the serotypes involved, and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Salmonella isolates recovered from fish, shrimp, lobster, and crab in Iran. A total of 384 samples of fish, shrimp, lobster, and crab were collected in three provinces along the Persian Gulf in the south coast of Iran. Samples were collected at the end of each month from September 2009 to May 2011. All samples were evaluated for the presence of Salmonella, stereotyped and tested for antimicrobial susceptibility. There was an overall Salmonella prevalence of 5%. Salmonella was isolated from a significantly larger number of fish (10.4%) than shrimp (1.8%; P?≤?0.05). No Salmonella was isolated from lobster and crab samples. Salmonella isolates recovered from fish and shrimp samples were of five different serotypes including Salmonella typhimurium, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonel la typhi, Salmonella paratyphi B, and Salmonella newport. Susceptibilities of Salmonella isolates were determined for 12 antimicrobial drugs using the disk-diffusion method. Resistance to nalidixic acid was the most common finding (47.4%), followed by resistance to tetracycline (36.8%), streptomycin (15.8%), trimethoprim (15.8%), and ciprofloxacin (5.3%). To our best knowledge, this is the first study on prevalence of Salmonella in fish, shrimp, lobster, and crab and the first report on the isolation of Salmonella spp. from retail fish and shrimp in Iran.