Poultry on the Estonian market is infected with superbugs, a study says

Imported poultry meat on the Estonian market is contaminated with campylobacters resistant to antibiotics and potentially hazardous to customers, a researcher has reported. “The current study revealed that broiler chicken meat of Lithuanian and Latvian origin sold in Estonian retail stores was contaminated with highly resistant Campylobacter spp,” Triin Tedersoo, a researcher from the Estonian University of Life Sciences said, adding that high genetic diversity was observed among the Campylobacter isolates from fresh broiler chicken meat samples. The study’s findings are alarming: a staggering 90.2% of the Campylobacter strains isolated from broiler chicken meat in 2018–2019 were resistant to one or more antimicrobials. This means that a significant share of poultry on the Estonian market is potentially hazardous to consumers. In contrast, Campylobacter isolates from fresh broiler chicken meat of Estonian origin were sensitive to all the tested antimicrobials, highlighting the ...