ABSTRACT

Chicken meat simply called “chicken poultry” is a type of poultry meat consumed all over the world amongst humans ranging from adults to adolescents.

This study evaluated the bacteriological quality of roasted chicken sold in Umuahia. A total of   ten (10) samples were collected at random aseptically with one each from the ten different locations with umuahia city. The samples were collected in a sterile aluminum foil and immediately transported to the laboratory in a pack cooler by standard bacteriological methods for analysis. A total of 23 bacteria comprising of 6 different species were isolated from the roasted chicken samples purchased from the vendors. These isolate comprise of Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus sp, Bacillus sp, Klebsiella sp, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella sp. The total bacterial plate count ranged from 1.6 × 105 to 2.8 × 105 with Isi-gate giving the highest mean count whereas Bende road has the lowest mean count. The coliform plate count ranged from 1.1 × 105 to 3.1 × 105 with Orpet giving the highest mean count whereas Umudike junction has the lowest mean count. it was observed that Escherichia coli is the most frequently occurring isolates with a percentage occurrence of (30.4%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus with a percentage occurrence of (21.7%), then Salmonella sp (17.4%), Bacillus sp with the percentage occurrence of (13.0%), whereas Klebsiella sp and Streptococcus sp have the least percentage occurrence of (8.7%). The antibiotic sensitivity test showed that Ofloxacin (91.3%) is the drug of choice following the fact that it showed high rate of sensitivity to the bacterial isolates tested, this is followed by Gentamicin (82.6%), Streptomycin (73.9%), Cephalexin (60.9%) etc, whereas Cotrimoxazole and Ampicillin (21.7%) has the least percentage susceptibility to the isolates. The presence of Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus sp, Bacillus sp, Klebsiella sp, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella sp on the roasted chickens sold within Umuahia has serious public health implications. There is therefore health risk in eating exposed roasted chickens sold in this locality.