Effect of Chromium on Antibiotics Resistance in Salmonella Species

ABSTRACT

Water is of major importance to all living things and it’s an essential component for our wellbeing and healthy living. Salmonella is recognized as a significant human pathogen in water. Salmonella species are non spore forming and these constitute important sources of contamination in natural waters and can contribute to the transmission of communicable diseases. In this study, the antibiotics resistance pattern of Salmonella sp after exposure to chromium was examined. The antibiotic impregnated discs were placed on freshly prepared lawns of each isolate on Muller Hinton Agar plates, incubated at 35-37 oc for 24hours and examined for inhibition zones . The isolates were generally resistant to one or more antibiotics tested and a significant number of the isolate containing chromium supplemented Salmonella sp showed more resistivity to the antibiotics than the isolate containing only Salmonella sp. The high resistivity of chromium to antibiotics is because the presence of heavy metal toxicity reduces the effectiveness of the antibiotics. The wide spread use of chromium and the indiscriminate disposal of byproducts and wastes from industrial processes have serious problems of environmental pollution in urban areas and other ecosystems associated with industrial discharges.From the result of the independent sample t-test performed, there is significant difference between Salmonella count in chromium supplemented Salmonella solution and non –chromium supplement Salmonella solution.