Prevalence and Antibiotic Resistance of Clostridioides (Clostridium difficile) In Meat and Meat Products: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Meat and meat products are introduced as one of the carriers of Clostridioides difficile. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of C. difficile isolates in meat and meat products using a systematic review and meta-analysis.

It was performed a literature search in the primary international and bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE (PubMed), Cochrane Library, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science to achieve all articles related to the prevalence and antibiotic resistance rates with no time restriction. A total of 54 studies examined C. difficile in 15,010 samples and its resistance to 10 antibiotics.

The pooled prevalence of C. difficile was 3.4% in all samples. C. difficile pooled prevalence was detected in fish, poultry, and red meat samples with 6.9%, 5.2%, and 3.2%, respectively. Regarding antibiotic resistance, the highest pooled prevalence was for ciprofloxacin (86.6%), followed by clindamycin (42.6%) and erythromycin (34%). The lowest pooled prevalence was observed in metronidazole (7.6%), vancomycin (6.6%), and chloramphenicol (6%). We found low resistance to commonly used drugs for C. difficile infection treatment.

Every antibiotic can be a risk factor for CDI development, and drugs such as clindamycin, cephalosporins, and lately fluoroquinolones carry the highest risk. Therefore, we recommend the rational use of antibiotics in veterinary and human medicine