Prevalence and characterization of Salmonella enterica from the feces of cattle, poultry, swine and hedgehogs in Burkina Faso and their comparison to human Salmonella isolates

Abstract

BackgroundProduction and wild animals are major sources of human salmonellosis and animals raised for food also play an important role in transmission of antimicrobial resistant Salmonella strains to humans. Furthermore, in sub-Saharan Africa non-typhoidal Salmonella serotypes are common bloodstream isolates in febrile patients. Yet, little is known about the environmental reservoirs and predominant modes of transmission of these pathogens. The purpose of this study was to discover potential sources and distribution vehicles of Salmonella by isolating strains from apparently healthy slaughtered food animals and wild hedgehogs and by determining the genetic relatedness between the strains and human isolates. For this purpose, 729 feces samples from apparently healthy slaughtered cattle (n = 304), poultry (n = 350), swine (n = 50) and hedgehogs (n = 25) were examined for the presence of Salmonella enterica in Burkina Faso. The isolates were characterized by serotyping, antimicrobial-susceptibility testing, phage typing, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) with XbaI and BlnI restriction enzymes.ResultsOf the 729 feces samples, 383 (53%) contained Salmonella, representing a total of 81 different serotypes. Salmonella was present in 52% of the cattle, 55% of the poultry, 16% of the swine and 96% of the hedgehog feces samples. Antimicrobial resistance was detected in 14% of the isolates. S. Typhimurium isolates from poultry and humans (obtained from a previous study) were multiresistant to the same antimicrobials (ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfonamides and trimethoprim), had the same phage type DT 56 and were closely related in PFGE. S. Muenster isolates from hedgehogs had similar PFGE patterns as the domestic animals.ConclusionsBased on our results it seems that production and wild animals can share the same Salmonella serotypes and potentially transmit some of them to humans. As the humans and animals often live in close vicinity in Africa and the hygiene control of the meat retail chain is defective, high Salmonella carriage rates of the animals can pose a major public health risk in Burkina Faso. This underlines the necessity for a joint and coordinated surveillance and monitoring programs for salmonellosis in Africa.

Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhi and Paratyphi Responsible of Typhoid and Paratyphoid Fevers Transmitted by Environment and Food

“…A recent study showed high prevalence of Salmonella from lettuce in Burkina; the distribution of serotypes of Salmonella from lettuce samples comprised Salmonella Typhi 1%, Salmonella Paratyphi 50% (Somda et al, 2017). These finding supports the well-documented role of the presence of Salmonella in waste water and animals feces in environmental contamination in Burkina Faso as in some others developing countries (Kagambèga et al, 2013;Traoré et al, 2015). …”

Antimicrobial susceptibility of <i>Salmonella enterica</i> strains isolated from raw beef, mutton and intestines sold in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

“…The prevalence may be based by diversity in sampling methods, sampling seasons and techniques (Li et al, 2013). However, some variations may be due to several factors, sanitation within the slaughterhouse, and the cross-contamination of carcasses by contact with intestinal tracts during slaughter or processing and differences among isolation methods applied to detect Salmonella (Rahimi, 2012;Kagambèga et al, 2013). The high level of contamination of meat and intestine with Salmonella observed in this study indicates the need for an improvement in the microbiological quality of meat.…”

“…The problem may be due to the natural resistance of species to certain antibiotics, possible transfer of antibiotic resistance among species and the use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics in animal feeds to improve animal productivity, which could also select for resistant strains (EFSA, 2012;Sambe-Ba et al, 2013). This practice leads into a possibility that bacterial resistance developing in the animals or food animals' transfers to the human population thus posing a risk for public health by spreading of the resistance (Kagambèga et al, 2013). In Burkina Faso, the irrational use of antibiotics in animal husbandry is considered a major cause of increased Salmonella resistance.…”

“…As far as intestines are concerned, the proportions of Salmonella are lower in beef intestine (18%) than sheep intestine (22%) (p = 0.635). The incidence of Salmonella in meats products obtained by other authors varied between 0 and 100% in Russia, Burkina Faso, China and Iran (Alali et al, 2012;Kagambèga et al, 2013;Li et al, 2013;Zhu et al, 2014;Sodagari et al, 2015). The presence of these organisms in food animals and in raw meat products has relevant public health implications (Tassew et al, 2010).…”

“…All previous studies showed that Salmonella was widely distributed in retail meat globally, which increased salmonellosis following consumption of contaminated meat or cross-contamination. In Burkina Faso, sheep and others animals were mostly roam freely at pasture in the bush (Kagambèga et al, 2013). The risk of contamination may be higher if beef meat or mutton is consumed undercooked (Sodagari et al, 2015).…”