Abattoirs are known all over the world to pollute the environment either directly or indirectly
from their various processes. The aim of this work is to determine the bacterial load, antibiotic resistance and plasmid
profile of resistant bacteria isolated from government and private abattoirs around in Ikpoba River in Benin City.
Bacteria and coliform count were done using pour plating method. The total viable bacteria counts ranged
4.2x10
5±1.8 - 1.5xl0
6± 0.7 cfu/ml and 1.3x10
6± 0.1-3.1 x 10
6 ± 0.5cfu/ml for government and private abattoir
respectively, The coliform count ranged from 2.7x10
5± 0.1 - 3.8xl0
5±1.4 cfu/ml and 5.5x10
5±0.3 - 9:2xl0
5±0.4 cfu/ml
for government and private abattoir respectively.
Escherichia coli
,
Streptococcus faecalis
,
Pseudomonas aeriginosa
,
Enterobacter aerogenes
,
Micrococcus luteus
,
Bacillus subtills
and
Staphylococcus aureus
were isolated
and identified by cultural, morphological and biochemical characteristics. Susceptibility of the microbes was
determined. The isolates were resistant to most of the commonly used antibiotics. Plasmid profile of isolates was
also determined. The profile study shows that all resistant bacterial isolates harbored plasmid mediated resistance to
antibiotics which was confirmed by plasmid curing. Therefore this research showed contamination of abattoirs
effluents with antibiotic resistant bacterial isolates. This specially calls for treatment of the wastewater before
discharging into the river.
