Antimicrobial Resistance in Isolated from Food Workers and Chicken Products in Japan.

is an enteric bacterial pathogen that causes foodborne illness in humans. Third-generation cephalosporin (TGC) resistance in remains a global concern. Food workers may represent a reservoir of , thus potentially contaminating food products. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of in food workers and characterize the isolates by serotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. was isolated from 583 (0.079%) of 740,635 stool samples collected from food workers between January and December 2018, and then serotyped into 76 serovars and 22 untypeable strains. High rates of antimicrobial resistance were observed for streptomycin (51.1%), tetracycline (33.1%), and kanamycin (18.4%). Although isolates were susceptible to ciprofloxacin, 12 (2.1%) strains (one . Infantis, one . Manhattan, two . Bareilly, two . Blockley, two . Heidelberg, two . Minnesota, one . Goldcoast, and one untypeable strain) were resistant to the TGC cefotaxime, all of which harbored β-lactamase genes (, , , and ). Moreover, 1.3% (4/309) of strains (three . Infantis and one . Manhattan strains) isolated from chicken products were resistant to cefotaxime and harbored or . Thus, food workers may acquire TGC-resistant after the ingestion of contaminated chicken products and further contaminate food products.