PREVALENCE OF Escherichia coli PATHOTYPES IN FAECES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN BENIN CITY, NIGERIA

Abstract

One hundred and sixty–four feacal samples from six different kinds of animals (chickens, cow, pigs, goats, cats and dogs) were examined for enterotoxin producing Escherichia coli and Enetrohaemorhagic strain 0157:H7, using Suckling mouse assay, ligated rabbit illeal loop assay and 0157:H7 antiserum respectively. A total of 90(54.9%) Escherichia coli strains were isolated. EHEC 0157:H7 strain was not detected, but 6(6.7%) isolates were found positive for heat-stable enterotoxins (ST) and 5(5.6%) isolates for heat- labile enterotoxins (LT). The Escherichia coli isolates were tested for susceptibility to 10 antibiotics using the disc diffusion method. Gentamycin appeared to be the most active antibiotic as only 5.5% of the isolates were resistant to it, while penicillin was the least effective with 84.4% of the isolates resistant to it. All strains showed multiple resistance to at least 7 antibiotics. Many of the animals screened had antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli most of which were however not Enteropathogenic