ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Salmonella isolates recovered from retail meats that were collected in supermarkets and free markets in Xi'an and Yangling areas of Shaanxi province were studied to determine antibiotic susceptibility.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Antimicrobial susceptibility to 14 antibiotics of 193 salmonella isolates were determined by using agar dilution method, which was recommended by National Committee of Clinical Laboratory Standard (NCCLS), and E.coli ATCC25922 and E.faecalis ATCC29212 as standard control strains.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The 44.6% of the salmonella isolates were resistant to sulfamethoxazole, followed by resistance to kanamycin (40.9%), tetracycline (37.8%), amoxicillin (26.9%), ampicillin (25.4%), gentamicin (23.3%) and chloramphenicol (21.8%). Some isolates also showed resistance to fluoroquinolones, the rates for ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, levofloxacin and gatifloxacin were 22.3%, 21.8%, 20.8% and 21.2%, respectively. 55 isolates (28.5%) were multidrug resistant (MDR) strains, 28 of 193 isolates (14.5%) could resist at least 13 antibiotics, 24 isolates (12.4%) were resistant to from 4 to 12 antibiotics.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Salmonella isolates recovered from retail meats in Xi'an district of Shaanxi province were seriously resistant to antimicrobials commonly used as human and veterinary medicine.</p>