HYDERABAD: Forget the normal bacteria like E coli present in chicken sold in Hyderabad markets . It is now the turn of superbugs to contaminate the chicken meat .

In a cause for concern, an international team of researchers including those from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has found superbugs in 46 per cent of the chicken meat samples sold in Hyderabad city and parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. These superbugs have developed resistance to a plethora of antibiotics, which will only increase the cost of hospitalisation or medication in affected individuals.

The researchers warned that poultry meat contaminated by multi-drug resistant and pathogenic E coli could cause diseases in human beings. “This is particularly alarming for countries such as India given high disease burden, emergence of resistance traits, and the confluence of prevailing socio-economic, demographic and environmental factors,” the research team warned in its study published in the latest issue of the scientific journal, Frontiers in Microbiology.

The study was led by eminent scientist Dr Niyaz Ahmed of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. Apart from researchers from the department of biotechnology and bioinformatics, University of Hyderabad, scientists from the department of microbiology and cell biology, Indian Institute of Science (IIS), Bengaluru, and Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany, participated in the research.

Interestingly, the team found that the pathogenic bacterial contamination level is relatively low in free-range (country or desi) chicken. “Over half of the chicken meat samples were contaminated with E coli. A total of 168 E coli isolates were recovered from 120 poultry samples. Out of the 32 and 13 raw meat samples from broiler and free-range chicken, 29 (91 per cent) and 11 (84 per cent) were contaminated with E coli, respectively. Compared to broiler chicken meat (78 per cent), free-range chicken meat demonstrated lower contamination (15 per cent) by E coli,” the study revealed.

The researchers noticed that antibiotics was rampant in E coli obtained from chicken. “Across the entire dataset of poultry E coli isolates, resistance to tetracycline was most prevalent (84 per cent) followed by ciprofloxacin (70 per cent), co-trimoxazole (45 per cent), and gentamicin (32 per cent) whereas a small fraction of total E coli were found to be resistant to chloramphenicol (8 per cent) and fosfomycin (4 per cent),” they said adding that strains of E coli samples in the free-range birds (country chicken) tended to be resistant to fewer antimicrobial agents.

Pathogenic E coli is the leading cause of infections in birds and human beings. The team attributed the drug resistance to increased antimicrobial usage in the poultry industry. “Use of antibiotics in poultry may have led to the emergence and dissemination of multiresistant and pathogenic E coli variants, which could be a serious public health threat,” they said warning that the results of the study have “potential implications for public health policies on antibiotic usage regulation”.

