Enhancing Capability and Capacity of Maryland’s Laboratory to Conduct Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance Pathogens in Selected Retail Foods

Maryland State Department Of Health, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Food-borne bacterial infections contribute to morbidity and mortality world-wide. The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) was established to perform public health surveillance in the United States to track antimicrobial resistance in enteric bacteria isolated from retails food products. The MD Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has been participating in the NARMS program for numbers of years and successfully contributed to the development of the data used in the studies of bacterial illness to retail food contamination. The study has been performed in collaboration between the State of Maryland DHMH epidemiologists and laboratory scientists to assure the quality of the results. Retail foods including ground beef, pork chops, ground turkey and chicken breast with skin, are purchased by the MD DHMH staff from stores the Baltimore metropolitan areas every two weeks. The samples are processed according to the protocols for the presence of Salmonella, E. coli and Enterococci. The poultry samples are also tested for the presence of Campylobacter. Bacterial isolate?s identity are then confirmed with the appropriate methods. Additionally, we are capable of serotyping Salmonella isolates and speciating the other isolates using molecular methods. After all isolates are confirmed and frozen at -80?C, they are submitted to the FDA for antibiotic susceptibility testing and further characterization.