The Spread of Cronobacter sakazakii in the Domestic Kitchen

Introduction:  Cronobacter sakazakiiis an emerging, opportunistic pathogen implicated in severe meningitis, sepsis, and necrotizing in premature and full-term infants. Being widely distributed, this pathogen has also been detected in processing environment, and domestic environments; thereby posing some level of safety risk to infants and individuals with low immunity.

Purpose:  The purpose of this study was to assess the occurrence of C. sakazakiiin selected domestic kitchens. In addition, the antimicrobial resistance patterns of the pathogen were also examined for points of public health significance.

Methods:  A total of 234 contact sites in seventy-eighty domestic kitchens were analyzed and tested for C. sakazakii. Consumers used dish clothes and cleaning sponges were also tested for the pathogen. Chromogenic Cronobacter Druggan-Forsythe-Iversen (DFI) agar, API 20E test system, and PCR were used for isolation and identification. C. sakazakii was identified by PCR targeting the 16S-23S ribosomal DNA and the OmpA genes. Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined using the disk diffusion method.

Results:   C. sakazakii was recovered from 26.9% of domestic kitchens visited. C. sakazakii isolates demonstrated multidrug resistance where the highest resistance was observed in penicillin (76.1%), followed by tetracycline, (66.6%), ciprofloxacin (57.1%), and nalidixic acid (47.6%). None of the tested C. sakazakiiwas resistant to gentamycin.

Significance:  This study suggests that antibiotic-resistant C. sakazakii could be present in various sites of domestic kitchen.