Antibiotic Resistance Patterns of Isolated from Mastitic Cows and Ewes in Egypt

3 Abstract: Streptococcal mastitis causes great economic losses in dairy industries allover the world. For humans, S. agalactiae is responsible for persistent disease in adults and neonates. The present study investigated the prevalence of streptococci in mastitic cows and ewes as well as, the antibiotic resistance patterns of Streptococcus agalactiae isolates. A total of 570 milk samples collected from cow (n=300) and ewes (n=270) were examined. Streptococcus species were isolated from cows (55 %) and ewes (50.4%). S. agalactiae, S. dysgalactiae S. uberis, S. pyogenes and S. pneumoniae were isolated from the examined cow samples with incidence of 19.3, 17, 15.3, 2.7 and 0.7% respectively. Also, S. agalactiae, S. dysgalactiae S. uberis, S. pyogenes and S. pneumoniae were isolated from the examined ewes with incidence of 20.4, 15.9, 10.4, 2.6 and 1.1% respectively. The objective of this work was to characterize S. agalactiae isolated from mastitic cows and ewes by RAPD and antibiotic sensitivity test to detect the diversity of the isolates. S. agalactiae isolated from dairy cows and ewes was sensitive to ampicillin, penicillin and cefotaxime. Resistant to vancomycin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline and clindamycin was recorded among the examined S. agalactiae isolated from cows and ewes. The data indicated the existence of different RAPD patterns among the multidrug resistant S. agalactiae isolates.