Forty samples of twenty brands of sachet orange juice products were
examined microbiologically. All the products were contaminated with
bacteria and yeasts. The organisms encountered include Saccharomyces
cerevisiae , Saccharomyces sp, Rhodotorula
sp, Bacillus cereus , Bacillus subtilis , Escherichia
coli , Staphylococcus aureus , Streptococcus pyogenes
and Micrococcus sp. The resistances of thirty
bacterial strains isolated from orange juice products to the commonly
used antibiotics were studied. About 66.67% of the isolates were
resistant to augmentin and amoxycillin; 63.33% to cotrimoxazole, 56% to
cloxacillin, and 23.33% to tetracycline. Resistances of 10, 6.67, and
3.33% were obtained for gentamicin, erythromycin and chloramphenicol
respectively. Among the eight antibiotics tested, seven patterns of
drug resistance were obtained. Six out of these are multiple-drug
resistance with number of antibiotics ranging between 2 to 8. While MIC
of amoxycillin ranged between 10-25mg/ml for the strains of E. coli,
MIC of 10-20mg/ml was obtained for the strains of S. aureus. The MIC
for cloxacillin was 0.1-1.0mg/ml for E. coli strains, and 0.01-1.0mg/ml
for S. aureus strains. In all, ten strains of the bacterial isolates
had evidence for the production of b-lactamases