Retail meats are one of the main routes for spreading antimicrobial-resistant bacteria (ARB) from livestock to humans through the food chain. In African countries, retail meats are often sold at roadside butcheries without chilling or refrigeration. Retail meats in those butcheries are suspected to be contaminated by ARB, but it was not clear. In this study, we tested for the presence of antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli from retail meats (n = 64) from roadside butcheries in Kampala, Uganda. The meat surfaces were swabbed and inoculated on PetriFilm SEC agar to isolate E. coli. We successfully isolated E. coli from 90.6% of these retail meat samples. We identified the phylogenetic type, antimicrobial susceptibility, and antimicrobial resistance genes prevalence between retail meat isolates (n = 89). Phylogenetic type B1 was identified from 70.8% of the retail meat isolates, suggesting that the isolates originated primarily from fecal contamination during meat processing. Tetracycline (TET)-resistant isolates with tetA and/or tetB gene(s) were the most frequently detected (28.1%), followed by ampicillin (AMP) resistance genes with blaTEM (15.7%,) and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (SXT) resistance genes with sul2 (15.7%). No extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing isolates were detected. A conjugation assay showed that resistance to AMP, TET, and SXT could be simultaneously transferred to recipients. These findings suggest that antimicrobial-resistant E. coli can easily be transferred from farms to tables from retail meats obtained from roadside butcheries.
Keywords: E. coli; Uganda; retail meat; roadside butchery.