Development of a selective media for detecting Campylobacter spp. in chicken carcasses using avibactam supplemented mCCDA.

Campylobacter spp. are major causes of gastrointestinal infections worldwide, and are commonly identified using modified-charcoal-cefoperazone-deoxycholate agar (mCCDA). However, the efficacy of this screening technique is often hindered by overgrowth of competing flora, such as extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli. Thus, in the present study we supplemented mCCDA with a recently developed ESBL inhibitor, avibactam (A-mCCDA). We inoculated mCCDA and A-mCCDA plates with 25 strains each of Campylobacter spp. and ESBL-producing E. coli, and thereby determined that the optimum avibactam concentration required to inhibit ESBL-producing E. coli was 0.0625 mg/L. At this concentration, a significantly higher proportion of Campylobacter spp. was isolated using A-mCCDA compared to that using mCCDA (P < 0.05). Thus, the results of the present study support the use of A-mCCDA to improve current Campylobacter screening methods.