Antimicrobial resistance in motile aeromonads isolated from fishes cultured in Uruguay

Abstract

Uruguay is a world reference in some aquaculture sectors such as caviar production in sturgeons farms. Bacterial outbreaks are usual in fish farming as well as in all intensive animal production and the use of antimicrobials appears as a strategy for their control. Motile aeromonads septicemia is the most prevalent infectious disease in Uruguayan aquaculture. The difficulties for access to specific formulations for aquaculture in the country and the lack of pharmacological information for the species and national culture conditions, cause in many cases, improper use of the drugs with the consequent risk of developing resistance to antimicrobials. The aim of this work was to characterize the antimicrobial resistance profiles developed by a representative number of aeromonads isolated from fishes cultured in Uruguay. It was used the agar diffusion method according to the protocol standardized by the Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute. The antimicrobials evaluated were: amoxicillin with clavulanic acid, ampicillin, ampicillin with dicloxacillin, enrofloxacin, erythromycin, nitrofurantoin, oxytetracycline, penicillin, thiamphenicol and sulfamethoxazole-trimetropim. We found a high percentage (82.3%) of antimicrobial multiresistant isolates. All the isolates analyzed were susceptible to the action of the antimicrobials enrofloxacin and nitrofurantoin.