Occurrence and antimicrobial susceptibility of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli in dog feces from public parks in Southern Ecuador
2015
Background: Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli are important agents of diarrhea in human beings. Several animals are reservoirs for these bacteria and they may contribute to environmental contamination through fecal shedding. The presence of dog feces in urban settings could be a risk of Campylobacter environmental contamination and a problem of public health concern. Besides environmental contamination, the increasing antimicrobial resistance among Campylobacter is another issue of public health significance. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of C. jejuni and C. coli in dog feces collected from public parks of Loja city, Ecuador, and establishing their susceptibility to six antibiotics. Materials, Methods & Results: A total of 70 fresh-looking non-diarrheal dog fecal samples were collected from public parks of Loja city. An amount (c. a. 1 g) of each fecal specimen was collected with a swab, placed in a tube containing Bolton enrichment broth and processed within the next six hours. Campylobacter spp. were isolated by direct plating onto Butzler selective agar and into Bolton enrichment broth, which were incubated at 42°C for 48 h in microaerophilic conditions. From Bolton enrichment broth subcultures to Butzler selective agar were made and also to blood agar, the latter using the passive filtration method in order to isolate C. upsaliensis. Identification was made firstly using the traditional phenotypic test (catalase, oxidase, oxygen tolerance, growth at 25°C, hippurate and indoxyl acetate hydrolysis, and cephalothin and nalidixic acid susceptibility) and corroborated by the genus-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and by the multiplex PCR (m-PCR) method proposed for the characterization of the six most common clinical Campylobacter species. Susceptibility to ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, erythromycin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin and gentamycin was performed by the disk diffusion method following the 2014 recommendations of The European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) and the Committee for the Antibiogram of the French Society of Microbiology. Campylobacter was isolated in 7/70 samples (10%) corresponding 4 (5.7%) to C. jejuni and 3 (4.3%) to C. coli. C. upsaliensis was not found. All the strains were susceptible to ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, erythromycin and gentamycin, six were resistant to tetracycline but all the seven strains were ciprofloxacin-resistant. Discussion: The isolation frequency of C. jejuni and C. coli in dog feces collected in the public parks of Loja city was higher than that reported by Wright (4.6%) for similar type of samples. However, it was lower than that shown in the other reports when dogs were directly sampled. Besides the aesthetically undesirable aspect of the presence of feces in public settings, they may represent a hygiene and public health problem because dog feces may contain potentially pathogenic bacteria for humans, like Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli, Yersinia spp. and Campylobacter spp. All seven isolated strains were susceptible to ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, erythromycin and gentamycin, six were resistant to tetracycline and surprisingly all of them were resistant to ciprofloxacin. The latter fact reflects the overuse of fluoroquinolones in animals, representing an emerging epidemiological problem with implications for treatment in humans. Dog feces deposited in public parks of Loja city yielded C. jejuni and C. coli suggesting that dogs could be a common source of environmental contamination with the additional risk of widespread ciprofloxacin resistant strains.
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