Antibiotic Resistance and Plasmid Profile of Bacterial Isolates from Pork Meat Retailed in Benin City

 The use of antibiotics in animal husbandry has helped in the reduction of animal diseases. However, health workers as well as enlightened consumers are becoming more concerned with the health implications such as resistance associated with the use of antibiotics since the same group of antibiotics are used in human medicine.Sixty (60) samples from pork meat, piggery environment and abbatoir effluent were screened for the presence of bacteria by selective and differential cultural procedures. Susceptibility of isolates to antibiotics and plasmid 
profiling were carried out using standard procedures. From the 60 samples analyzed, E. coli had the highest prevalence 49 (81.7 %) followed by Staphylococcus aureus 33 (55 %) and the least was Klebsiella pneumoniae 4 (6.7 %). In this study, it was observed that the most resisted drug was cefuroxime (93.3%) followed by ceftazidim (90 %) and the least was ciprofloxacin (13.3 %). The susceptibility pattern indicates that the bacterial isolates exhibited a varying level of resistance to two or more antimicrobial agents with maximum resistance to cefuroxime. Isolates were found to habour resistant plasmids of various sizes, but had susceptibility to antibiotics after plasmid 
curing. The detection of these organisms in pork meat may constitute a serious public health concern.The high rates of resistance found in this study can be explained by the wide use of antibiotics in Nigeria for pro-phylaxis and for treatment in animal farms.