Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles among <i>Escherichia coli</i> Strains Isolated from Athi River Water in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

Antimicrobial use in agriculture, livestock and human health has increased over the years leading to the increase in antimicrobial resistance that can also find its way to the aquatic environment. Rivers can act as reservoirs of highly resistant strains and facilitate the dissemination of multidrug resistant (MDR) strains to animals and humans using water. A total of 318 water samples were collected from six different sampling points along Athi River and E. coli isolates were subjected to Kirby-Bauer diffusion method for antimicrobial susceptibility testing. The total mean coliform count of the sampled sites was 2.7 × 10 4 (cfu/mL). E. coli isolates were most resistant to ampicillin (63.8%) and most susceptible to gentamicin (99.4%). MDR strains (resistance to ≥3 classes of antibiotics) accounted for 65.4% of all the isolates. The site recorded to have human industrial and agricultural zone activities had strains that were significantly more resistant to ampicillin, cefoxitin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (P ≤ 0.05) than isolates from the section of the river traversing virgin land and land with minimum human activities. This study indicates that E. coli strains isolated from Athi River were highly MDR and most resistant to some antimicrobial classes (ampicillin and cefoxitin) which constitute a potential risk to human and animal health.

Antimicrobial susceptibility profiles among bacterial isolates from Nairobi River Water in Nairobi County, Kenya

“…Isolates in dry season were higher than the wet season. These observations differed from those obtained in previous similar studies [27].…”

“…The current study also reported high number of resistant bacteria especially for ampicillin, amoxicillin, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, cefepime. These results are close to those published in related studies conducted in [27]. This is a public health concern because increase in resistant bacteria may complicate treatment of infections arising from such strains.…”

Antibacterial effect of ethanolic extracts of Moroccan plant against Escherichia coli

“…to multiple antibiotics. Our findings were similar to those obtained by Wambugu et al [42] in Escherichia coli strains isolated from different sections of Athi River Water (Kenya). Such resistance was also shown by Fanuncio and Nuñeza [39] in Escherichia coli strains isolated from water hand pumps (Philippines).…”

Physicochemical quality of and Escherichia coli resistance profiles in urban surface waters

“…Escherichia coli was discovered by Theodor Escherich in 1885. It is a gram-negative bacillary bacterium, commonly found in the intestines of humans and animals, and is an important indicator of water, soil and food contamination (Wambugu et al, 2015;Osinska et al, 2017). The wide use of antimicrobials in the fight against infectious diseases results in a continuous release of these drugs into waters and soils (Wang et al, 2017).…”