The survey was undertaken to investigate the presence and antimicrobial susceptibility profile of Salmonella spp. in raw and ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, and Campylobacter spp. in the retail raw chicken meat collected in two counties of Transylvania, Romania. A total of 13.1% (51/388) of the examined food samples were found to be Salmonella positive, with a distribution of 14.7% (48/326) in the raw food (i.e., pork, chicken carcass, and shell egg) and 4.8% (3/62) in the RTE samples (i.e., sausages, but not ham and salami), respectively. These differences were statistically significant (p = 0.034). The isolates were serotyped as Salmonella Infantis (n = 19), Salmonella Typhimurium (n = 11) Salmonella Rissen (n = 8), Salmonella Derby (n = 3), Salmonella Enteritidis (n = 3), Salmonella Bredeney (n = 2), Salmonella Brandenburg (n = 1), Salmonella Gloucester (n = 1), Salmonella Goldcoast (n = 1), Salmonella Kottbus (n = 1), and Salmonella Ruzizi (n = 1). Campylobacter strains were present in 29.4% (10/34) of the investigated chicken samples, and the identified species were Campylobacter coli (70%) and C. jejuni (30%). From the 14 tested antimicrobials, the Salmonella isolates were resistant against azithromycin (88.2%), tetracycline (54.9%), sulfamethoxazole (54.9%), ciprofloxacin (45.1%), nalidixic acid (43.1%), ampicillin (35.3%), chloramphenicol (33.3%), tigecycline (25.5%), cefotaxime (13.7%), colistin (13.7%), trimethoprim (7.8%), and gentamicin (2%), resulting in the expression of 21 multidrug-resistant (MDR) profiles. Of 10 Campylobacter isolates, 80% were resistant to ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid, 40% to tetracycline, and 10% to streptomycin and erythromycin, respectively. Our findings indicate that Romanian isolates of Salmonella spp. and Campylobacter spp., contaminating animal-origin foods, can exhibit MDR patterns, representing a public health risk.
Keywords: Campylobacter; Romania; Salmonella; antimicrobial resistance; food.