Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens) is a foodborne pathogen that represent a high risk to animals and poultry due to its high outbreak incidences worldwide causing diseases such as necrotic enteritis in chickens, enterotoxemia in rabbits and necro-hemorrhagic enteritis in calves leading to high economic losses in disease prevention and control.
This study aimed to investigate the drug resistance pattern and genetic characterization of C. perfringens isolated from different species in El-Gharbia governorate, Egypt.
The sensitivity test showed that 30 C. perfringens isolates (18 from chickens, 9 from rabbits and 3 from calves) were resistant to erythromycin, spectinomycin and sulphamethoxazole – trimethoprim and sensitive to ampicillin-sulbactam, acid, ofloxacin, cefotaxime, meropenem, cefaclor and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. PCR test revealed that all C. perfringens isolates were type A carrying cpa gene, whereas, net B and cpe genes were detected in only (40%) of the 5 tested isolates and were mainly restricted in isolates from chickens. Antibiotic-resistance genes ermB and sul1 were detected in (80%) and (100%) of isolates respectively. Drug resistance pattern variation between the current studied locality and others within Egypt may reflect the different levels of the previous antibiotics misuse. This may be taken as an alarm necessitating the conduction of a whole country well planned and controlled study of C. perfringens antibiotic resistance and their responsible genes to monitor the antibiotics resistance situation allover Egypt and draw a clear map of the current situation and a plan for reducing and even preventing further multidrug resistance (MDR) development of this serious bacteria.