Prevalence and Antimicrobial Susceptibility of Salmonellae Isolates from Reptiles in Taiwan

Abstract

Abstract. Pets, including reptiles, have been shown to be a source of Salmonella infection in humans. Due to increasing popularity and variety of exotic reptiles as pets in recent years, more human clinical cases of reptile-associated Salmonella infection have been identified. However, limited information is available with regard to serotypes in different reptiles (turtles, snakes, and lizards) and antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella in pet reptiles. The current study was thus conducted to determine the prevalence of Salmonella colonization in pet reptiles. Salmonella organisms were isolated from 30.9% of 476 reptiles investigated. The isolation prevalences were 69.7% (23/33), 62.8% (27/43), and 24.3% (97/400) in snakes, lizards, and turtles, respectively. A total of 44 different Salmonella serovars were identified. Compared with S. Heron, Bredeney, Treforest, and 4, [5],12:i:-, S. Typhimurium isolates were resistant to many antimicrobials tested, and notably 61.1% of the isolates were resistant to cephalothin. The results indicated that raising reptiles as pets could be a possible source of Salmonella infection in humans, particularly zoonotic Salmonella serovars such as S. Typhimurium that may be resistant to antimicrobials.

Prevalence and characteristics of Salmonella species isolated from captive reptiles in the Czech Republic

“…The lowest positivity for Salmonella spp. in this study was found in chelonians, which is in agreement with the results of other authors (Chen et al 2010;Lukac et al 2015). The feed composition could contribute to the low prevalence observed.…”

“…The highest level of resistance in this study was observed for streptomycin (7.7%). Resistance to this antibiotic in Salmonella strains derived from reptiles was noted by a number of other authors (Seepersadsingh and Adesiyun 2003;Chen et al 2010;Barazorda Romero et al 2015;Bertelloni et al 2016). A low prevalence of tetracycline resistance was detected in this study (2.6%), which is in agreement with published results (Ebani et al 2005;Sylvester et al 2014).…”

“…of about 19% in the studied reptiles. Available literature sources have reported varying levels of prevalence, namely, 54.1% in Germany and Austria (Geue and Loschner 2002), 32.6% in Poland (Piasecki et al 2014), 49% in Sweden (Wikstrom et al 2014), 13% in Croatia (Lukac et al 2015), 30.9% in Taiwan (Chen et al 2010) and 13.6% in Italy (Bertelloni et al 2016). Our results did not differ significantly from those obtained in other countries.…”

“…Another factor may be the low prevalence of resistant strains in the reptile feed. While a high proportion of sensitive strains was also reported by other authors (Geue and Loschner 2002;Gay et al 2014;Sylvester et al 2014), there are studies showing an increased prevalence of resistant and multi-drug-resistant strains in reptiles (Ebani et al 2005;Chen et al 2010;Bertelloni et al 2016). The highest level of resistance in this study was observed for streptomycin (7.7%).…”

“…However, it must be taken into consideration that the results are to a large extent influenced by the different systems of data collection in various countries and, therefore, (Ebani et al 2005) Ameiva ameiva (Everard et al 1979) Opheodrys vernalis (Chambers and Hulse 2006) Data not known (Ebani et al 2005) Iguana iguana (Woodward et al 1997) unspecified reptiles (Wikstrom et al 2014 (Lapage et al 1966) unspecified reptile (Aleksic et al 1996) Data not known Schrire et al 1987Aleksic et al 1996 S. enterica subsp. (Gopee et al 2000) Iguana iguana (Sylvester et al 2014 Pantherophis guttatus Physignathus lesueurii (Ebani et al 2005) Furcifer pardalis (Geue and Löschner 2002) unspecified reptile (Chen et al 2010) Data not known CDC 2016 Kim et al 2007 S. enterica subsp. enterica serotype Tennessee…”