[Staphylococcus aureus in poultry--biochemical characteristics, antibiotic resistance and phage pattern (author's transl)].

In a poultry processing plant in northern Germany 1412 swabs were taken from poultry carcasses together with 608 swabs from the personnel. The broilers came from 22 different chicken farms. The swabs taken from the poultry and those taken from the personnel proved to be 35% and 48% Staph. aureus positive respectively. The swabs taken from the feathers and from the skin were staphylococcal positive at a higher level (47%) than the swabs taken from the cloaca (19%) and the throat (23%). Between 8% and 63% of the animals from the various chicken farms were Staph. aureus positive. The frequency of staphylococcal contamination increased during the course of slaughter. 57% of the swabs taken from the gloves and the hands and 42% from the aprons of the personnel were Staph. aureus positive. Some biochemical properties, the phage patterns, and the antibiotic resistance against oleandomycin, erythromycin, bacitracin, streptomycin, tetracyclin, penicillin, chloramphenicol, virginiamycin and flavomycin were determined from 445 poultry and 345 personnel Staph. aureus isolates. Only small differences could be established between both sources in this way. Only 20% of the personnel and 34% of the chicken strains were resistant to antibiotics. In the strains collected from personnel, penicillin-resistance predominated while the poultry isolates showed predominantly tetracyclin-resistance. Of all antibiotics applied nutritively in the chicken fattening, there was a higher resistance only against oleandomycin (11% of the poultry strains). Between the chicken farms there was a different frequency of resistance (0--68%). The source of the staphylococci could be determined for only some of the strains. Only 2.5% of the chicken isolates showed characteristics described in the literature to be "poultry-specific", whereas 37% of the personnel and 24% of the poultry isolates were shown to be "human-specific" strains. It seems that the vast majority of the staphylococci originated from the slaughterhouse personnel. The rest of the strains differed in varying combinations of their properties from the given species characteristics. Although Staph. aureus was brought into the slaughterhouse by the poultry, the contaminations of the final product seemed to originate mainly from human beings.