A cross-sectional study on six dairy farms was conducted to ascertain the occurrence of carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli in calves. Two-hundred and seventy-nine isolates of E. coli were recovered from 90 faecal samples from apparently healthy (45) and diarrhoeal (45) calves. The isolates were screened for phenotypic susceptibility to carbapenems and production of metallo β-lactamase, as well as five carbapenemase resistance genes by PCR, and overexpression of efflux pumps. Eighty-one isolates (29.03%) were resistant to at least one of three carbapenem antibiotics [meropenem (23.30%), imipenem (2.15%) and ertapenem (1.43%)], and one isolate was positive for the blaVIM gene which was located on an Incl1 plasmid of a novel sequence type (ST 297) by multilocus sequence typing. The majority (83.95%) of isolates had an active efflux pump. Calves housed on concrete floors were approximately seven times more likely to acquire meropenem-resistant isolates than those housed on earthen floors (95% CI 1.27–41.54). In India, carbapenem drugs are not used in food animal treatment, hence carbapenem-resistant strains in calves possibly originate from the natural environment or human contact and is of public health importance. To our knowledge, this is the first report of blaVIM carbapenemases gene in calves from India.

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A paramount and alluring sphere of research, now-a-days, is food analysis, because of the breakneck augmentation of food enterprise and highly hightened maneuverability of today's populations. The management of food quality is very indispensable both for consumer safeguard as well as the food corporations. The biosensors' application in the field of food analysis is quite propitious for the revealing of food borne pathogens. Biosensor, an analytical device, transforms a biological response into an electrical signal. Bioreceptors and transducers are the two main components of a biosensor. Bioreceptor or biorecognition element is the one which leads to the recognition of target analyte and a transducer, for the conversion of recognized event into a measurable electrical signal. The development of biosensors improved the sensitivity and selectivity of detection techniques for food borne pathogens and is rapid, reliable, effective and highly suitable when used in in situ analysis. Since the security in the food supply becomes crucial because of increased perception among consumers and vying nature of food industries, the necessity for expeditious, low volume and sensitive biosensor devices has productively increased. TM Nevertheless , till date, a very few biosensor systems are available commercially such as Biacore, Spreeta , Reichert SR 7000, Analyte 2000, RAPTOR etc. Since, there is ever growing concern regarding safe food and water supply, it is very obvious that the demand for rapid detecting biosensors will also be increasing at par.

Significance and Impact of the Study: The article presents the first report of a latex agglutination test for the specific identification of the cultures of bacteria causing anthrax. As the test is targeting one of anthrax toxic protein (PA), this can also be used to determine virulence of suspected organisms. At the same time, the same LAT can be used directly on whole blood or sera samples under field conditions for the specific diagnosis of anthrax. AbstractA specific latex agglutination test (LAT) based on anti-PA (protective antigen) antibodies having detection limit of 5 9 10 4 formalin treated Bacillus anthracis cells or 110 ng of PA was optimized in this study. The optimized LAT could detect anthrax toxin in whole blood as well as in serum from the animal models of anthrax infection. The protocol is a simple and promising method for the specific detection of bacteria causing anthrax under routine laboratory, as well as in field, conditions without any special equipments or expertise.

Carbapenems are beta (β)-lactam antibiotics active against wide range of bacteria. Carbapenem resistance may be outcome of efflux pump activation, alteration in protein binding proteins, production of carbapenemases which degrade carbapenems. There are number of bacteria producing different types of carbapenemases like NDM (Enterobacteriaceae), IMP (Pseudomonas aeruginosa), IMI (Enterobacter cloacae), KPC (Klebsiella pneumonia), OXA-23, OXA-24/40, OXA-58-type (Acinetobacter baumannii), VIM (Acinetobacter baumannii) etc. Carbapenem resistance is emerging throughout the world due to interspecies transfer of genetic elements carrying genes for carbapenemase production. It is very difficult to control spread of resistant strains because of the continuous threshold of selection present in forms of presence of carbapenems in environment created through wide spread clinical use. To control infection of carbapenem resistant bacteria there are limited options available for treatment. Many a time carbapenem resistant bacteria show pan-resistance and such bacterial infection become life-threatening and cannot be treated with available last resort antibiotics like polymin B, tigecyclin and colistin. Infection of carbapenem resistant bacteria can be controlled using two or more antibiotics or antibiotic+ herbal drug combination or herbal drugs like (carvacrol, cinnamon, holy-basil oil, lemon grass oil) etc. The herbal drugs may be used as first line of treatment against carbapenem resistant bacteria instead of antibiotics. But, how? It is still not very lucid. Besides it, probiotics and homeopathic therapy has also been recommended with no sufficient data to establish their efficacy.