Most Staphylococcus. aureus show resistance to methicillin and are non-beta-lactam sensitive (MSSA) but are also resistant to other antibiotics and have been associated with mastitis, nosocomial infections, food poisoning, septicemia and other diseases in animals and man. No known study has identified S. aureus in milk of apparently healthy cows in Abeokuta and its environ. In this study, 7 of 9 isolates S. aureus (77.8%) were MSSA and they all showed good susceptibility to all the routinely used antibiotics in Abeokuta viz: Augmentin, Cefuroxime, Gentamycin, Cotrimoxazole, Ofloxacin Tetracycline and Perfloxcin. The S. aureus isolates also show a low MIC values of 2-4 ug/ml to all the antibiotics used, except cotrimoxazole where a value of 8ug/ml was recorded indicating an emergence of resistance to the cotrimazole antimicrobial agents. Rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant strains of MSSA pose a threat to public health and make treatment failure quite imminent, therefore African countries, including Nigeria should consider having efficient control over misuse of antibiotics. Research into molecular epidemiology of S.aureus to compare isolates from animals and man should be encouraged as identification on the basis of antimicrobial resistance is becoming inadequate to study the rapidly emerging genotypes of S. aureus.
Key words: Methicillin-Sensitive Staphylococcus aureus, MSSA, Prevalence, Antibiotic Sensitivity, Multi-drug Resistance, Apparently Healthy Cow milk.
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