摘要：Milk is a compensatory part of daily diet especially for the expectant mothers as well as growing children. It is virtually a sterile fluid when secreted into alveoli of udder. However, beyond this stage of production, microbial contamination might generally occur from different sources. A cross-sectional study was carried out from March 2013-January 2014 in Jigjiga city to assess bacterial contamination of raw milk meant for human consumption and to determine antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of the isolates. A total of 120 raw milk samples were aseptically collected from different sampling points that were hypothesized to be a source of potential contaminations. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 17 computer software. P-value of <0.05 was taken as statistical significance. Overall, the organisms identified and their prevalence rates were Escherichia coli 70(58 %), Staphylococcus aureus 29(24.2 %), Shigella Sp. 21 (17.5 %), Proteus sp. 9 (7.5 %) and Salmonella sp. 4 (3.3 %). The isolation rates of these identified bacteria from each sampling points are statistically significant in E. coli and Proteus sp. (P < 0.05). High antibiotic resistance for E. coli isolates were observed to Doxycycline (42.3 %) and Ampicillin (30 %). Shigella sp. was resistant to Ampicillin (38.1 %). Salmonella sp. isolates were highly resistant to Amoxicillin (50 %). Out of a total of 29 S.aureus isolates, high resistance rate was observed to penicillin G 27(93.1 %) followed by tetracycline 20(69 %), and very low level of resistance to vancomycin 2(6.9 %) and rifampicin 1(3.4 %). Multidrug resistance was also observed in 55.2 % of the total isolates. Considering the high rate of raw milk contamination with the above isolated bacteria, sanitary practice during collecting, transporting and vending is recommended since the consumption of unpasteurized milk may inflict an important public health risk.
