Food products confiscated from travellers entering in Germany as a source for third generation cephalosporin resistant pathogens

Foodborne diseases are considered a risk to global health security. Classical routes of pathogen transmission within the food chain are well monitored, but gaps exist such as the illegal carriage of food items by travellers from third countries into the EU. In 2010, just taking Frankfurt airport as an example, 22 t of various foods were confiscated. Within the EU project PROMISE ("Protection of consumers by microbial risk mitigation through combating segregation of expertise") we analysed the occurrence of third generation cephalosporin resistant pathogens in confiscated animal food products (i.e. cheese, chicken, sausages) collected at two German airports. For a first screening, 25g of each food product were enriched overnight at 37øC in buffered peptone water and streaked onto MacConkey agar containing 1 æg/ml cefotaxime. Single colonies were picked and subjected to species differentiation by MALDI-TOF. Antimicrobial resistance profiles were determined by broth microdilution and disk diffusion method against a panel of 29 antimicrobials including cephalosporins and carbapenems. We identified various multidrug (MDR) resistant pathogens, i.e. E. coli (phylogroups A, B1, B2), Acinetobacter and Enterobacter. Since passengers from third countries travelling to Germany are only sporadically controlled, illegal food imports seem to be a possible route for MDR organisms to enter Germany or other European countries. This might promote the spread of ESBL-producing bacteria and poses a risk for the infection treatment in human medicine.