Analysis of Epidemiological Characteristics, PFGE Typing and Antibiotic Resistance of Pathogenic Escherichia coli Strains Isolated from Gyeonggi-do

Abstract

This study was conducted to survey the epidemiological characteristics and the isolated strains for pathogenic E. coli which was the major causative organisms for food poisoning occurred at school food services in the Gyeonggi-do area during the past three years. We investigated 19 accidents of food-borne disease outbreaks by pathogenic E. coli at school food services from 2010 to 2012. Food-borne disease outbreaks by pathogenic E. coli were usually occurred at direct management type (18 accidents, 95%) and high schools. For the seasonal factors, 13 accidents (65%) were occurred in June to September, especially the end of August and September after the summer holidays. The first patients were occurred on Wednesday (7 accidents, 37%) and Thursday (7 accidents, 37%), and they were mainly reported on Thursday (7 accidents, 37%) and Friday (5 accidents, 26%). The exposure of risk was estimated in Monday (4 accidents, 21%), Tuesday (7 accidents, 37%) and Wednesday (4 accidents, 21%), and kimchi (5 accidents, 50%) was estimated as the food of the high risk responsible for the outbreaks. 98 isolates of pathogenic E. coli consisted of PEC (50%), ETEC (34%), EAEC (15%), and EHEC (1%). The antibiotic resistance of pathogenic E. coli showed in the descending order of ampicilline (40%), nalidixic acid (37%), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (24%), and tetracycline (19%). The antibiotics of second and third generation cephalosporins, cabarpenem, aminoglycosides, and second generation quinolones had antimicrobial susceptibilities and cefalotin, ampicillin/sulbactam and chloramphenicol showed medium resistance at 29%, 25%, and 6% respectively, and 70% of isolates were resistant to more than one antibiotic. By the PFGE analysis, they were classified into nine major groups and 31 profiles with 57% pattern similarity. It was very difficult to find the correlation of antimicrobial susceptibilities and genotype in the small scale-food poisoning, but the similarity of antimicrobial resistance and PFGE patterns in the large scale-food poisoning enabled the outbreaks to estimate the same pathotype of E. coli derived from identical origins.

Combined effect of various salt concentrations and lactic acid bacteria fermentation on the survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in white kimchi at different temperatures

“…However, recently, it has been reported that several foodborne outbreaks, especially outbreaks of E. coli and coliform, were associated with kimchi consumption in South Korea. According to a school food service survey from 2010 to 2012, 50% of foodborne disease outbreaks occurred at schools in Gyeonggi-do Province may have been due to kimchi consumption (Kim et al, 2014). In 2012, 1642 children at seven schools in Incheon suffered from foodborne disease after eating kimchi contaminated by E. coli O169, which resulted from kimchi that had been processed after insufficient ripening periods (Cho et al, 2014).…”

Development of Kinetic Models and Their Applications to Describe the Resistance of <i>Listeria monocytogenes</i> in Napa Cabbage Kimchi to Fermentation Conditions

“…Hence, kimchi has been considered to be a microbiologically safe food (Choi et al, 2018b). However, foodborne outbreaks involving kimchi from school meal services and recalls have occurred in South Korea and the United States because of foodborne pathogen contamination in kimchi, especially Listeria monocytogenes in napa cabbage (Food Safety News, 2011;NSP News Agency, 2011;KCDC, 2014;Kim et al, 2014).…”