The prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli in domestic animals and food in Serbia

Abstract

Faecal samples of 2660 domestic animals from 116 farms and 956 samples of food were examined for the presence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC). STEC was recovered from 126 (15.3%) cattle, 135 (11.3%) pigs, 135 (66.8%) sheep, 31 (73.8%) goats, 4 (1%) chicken, and 15 (1.6%) food samples. Of all STEC isolates, 21.5, 25.8 and 15% produced enterohaemolysin, alpha-haemolysin, and aerobactin respectively, 1.6% displayed localized adherence (LA) to HEp-2 cells, 27.6% were sorbitol negative, and 30% were resistant to antibiotics. Only 14 (3.1%) of the STEC isolates belonged to human infection-associated serogroups (O26, O55, O111, O128 and 0157), designated as enterohaemorrhagic E. coil (EHEC). This study revealed that STEC are prevalent in domestic animals, and to a lesser extent in food of animal origin in Serbia, but the absence of a EHEC phenotypic profile (characteristic serogroup, LA, enterohaemolysin production) in most animal STEC strains may explain the low incidence of human STEC infection in this part of the world.

Potential Pathogenicity and Host Range of Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli Isolates from Healthy Poultry

“…Detection of a VTEC strain from poultry was surprising since this zoonotic pathotype is traditionally associated with cattle and other ruminants (7). However, the occurrence of VTEC in poultry has been sporadically reported in recent years (2,11,14). The vtx2-harboring strain described in the present study was assigned to ST752, which is represented in the MLST database by a clinical enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) strain isolated in Germany in 2007.…”

Prevalence and characteristics of intimin-producing Escherichia coli strains isolated from healthy chickens in Korea

“…Some reports indicated that colonization and fecal shedding of ETEC were observed in chicks after oral challenge (Stavric et al, 1993;La Ragione et al, 2005;Johnson et al, 2007). However, ETEC was not detected from chicken fecal samples at farms or slaughterhouses (Kobayashi et al, 2002;Wani et al, 2004) or was detected in 1% at a very low level (Cobeljić et al, 2005). It was suggested that chickens might not be potential reservoirs of ETEC.…”

Presence and Characterization of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli and Other Potentially Diarrheagenic E. coli Strains in Retail Meats

“…Similarly, Brooks et al failed to isolate STEC from 36 chicken samples in New Zealand (6,46), and Heuvelink et al did not find STEC O157 in raw chicken (n ϭ 744) and poultry products (n ϭ 75) in The Netherlands (26). However, Samadpour et al recovered 4 STEC isolates from 33 chicken breasts and 1 STEC isolate from 15 turkey samples (12), and Doyle and Schoeni found STEC O157 in 4 of 263 poultry products (15). These isolations were previously thought to possibly be due to exposure to infected ruminants, but recent isolation of STEC from laying hens indicated that poultry may be a source of contamination (14).…”