Clostridium perfringens is one of the most important zoonotic pathogens as it can cause food poisoning in humans and necrotic enteritis in both animals and humans. Meat, especially pork and chicken meat, is considered the main vehicle for the transmission of C. perfringens from animals to humans. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence, toxinotype, and antimicrobial resistance profile of C. perfringens isolated from pork and chicken meat sold in Vietnam. The isolation results showed that 15/50 (30%) of pork samples and 8/50 (16%) of chicken meat samples were contaminated with C. perfringens. The isolates exhibited their highest resistance rate to tetracycline (21/23; 91.30%) and clindamycin (10/23; 43.48%). On the contrary, their lowest resistance rates were observed in response to imipenem (2/23; 8.70%) and cefoxitin (1/23; 4.35%). In particular, 34.78% (8/23) of C. perfringens isolates were identified to be multidrug-resistant strains. The results of toxin genotyping indicated that all isolates were positive for the cpa gene and belonged to type A.

Bacterial food poisoning cases due to Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 have been linked with the consumption of a variety of food products, threatening public health around the world. This study describes the combined effects of a phage cocktail (STG2, SEG5, and PS5), EDTA, nisin, and polylysine against the bacterial cocktail consisting of S. typhimurium, S. enteritidis, and E. coli O157:H7. Overall, phage cocktail (alone or in combination with nisin or/and polylysine) not only showed great antibacterial effects against bacterial cocktail at different temperatures (4 °C, 24 °C, and 37 °C), but also totally inhibited the emergence of phage resistance during the incubation period. These results suggest that the combination of phages with nisin or/and polylysine has great potential to simultaneously control S. typhimurium, S. enteritidis, and E. coli O157:H7.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious swine disease with high mortality. In many countries, culling pigs infected and exposed to the ASF virus is mandatory to control the disease, which poses a real challenge in the disposal of large numbers of carcasses during ASF outbreaks. Shallow burial with carbon (SBC) Thanks ew mortality disposal method developed from deep burial and composting. The present study investigates the effectiveness of SBC in disposing of ASF virus-infected pigs. The real-time PCR results showed that DNA of the ASF virus was still detected in bone marrow samples on day 56, while the virus isolation test revealed that the infectious ASF virus was destroyed in both spleen and bone marrow samples on day 5. Interestingly, decomposition was found to occur rapidly in these shallow burial pits. On day 144, only large bones were found in the burial pit. In general, the results of this study indicated that SBC is a potential method for the disposal of ASF-infected carcasses; however, further studies are needed to provide more scientific evidence for the efficacy of SBC in different environment conditions.

Identifying and ensuring the inactivation of the African Swine Fever virus in deadstock is a gap in the swine industry’s knowledge and response capabilities. The results of our study demonstrate that ASFv in deadstock was inactivated using static aerated composting as the carcass disposal method. Replicated compost piles with whole market hogs and two different carbon sources were constructed. In-situ bags containing ASFv-infected spleen tissue were placed alongside each of the carcasses and throughout the pile. The bags were extracted at days 0, 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 56, and 144 for ASFv detection and isolation. Real-time PCR results showed that DNA of ASFv was detected in all samples tested on day 28. The virus concentration identified through virus isolation was found to be below the detection limit by day 3 in rice hulls and by day 7 in sawdust. Given the slope of the decay, near-zero concentration with 99.9% confidence occurred at 5.0 days in rice hulls and at 6.4 days in sawdust. Additionally, the result of virus isolation also showed that the virus in bone marrow samples collected at 28 days was inactivated.

Colistin-resistant Escherichia coli (COE) has been recently recognized as a serious threat to animal and human health. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and antibiotic resistance profile of COE isolated from raw beef and cow feces in Vietnam. Our results showed that 16% (16/100) and 32% (32/100) of raw beef and cow feces samples were positive for COE, respectively. A total of 48 COE strains were isolated, with 16 originating from raw beef and 32 from cow feces samples. The antibiotic susceptibility test revealed that the COE isolates were highly resistant to ampicillin, tetracycline, florfenicol, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, streptomycin, and nalidixic acid, with resistance rates ranging from 66.67% to 87.5%. In addition, 87.5% of the isolates were identified to be multidrug-resistant strains. Further molecular characterization indicated that all COE isolates carried the mcr-1 gene, with 16 of them also harboring bla_CTX-M-55 genes. Taken together, the findings in this study demonstrate that raw beef and cow feces are important sources of COE, which can be potentially transmitted to humans through the food chain.