Qualitative Assessment of Livestock Faeces and Sewage for Antibiotic Resistant Strains of E. coli in Roma, Lesotho

Abstract

Sewage water (SW) and fresh livestock faeces: Chicken (ChNF), Sheep (SF), and Cattle (CF) were taken randomly from the farm of the National University of Lesotho aseptically during the 2012 academic year. Twenty ml of sewage water or 20 grams of fresh animal faeces was dissolved in 80 ml of sterilized Ringer's solution and serially diluted. A 0.1 ml of sample suspension at 10 -4 dilution was spread plated on Nutrient Agar (NA) and Eosine Methyl Blue (EMB) and plates were incubated for 24-48h at 24 and 37°C, respectively. A disc diffusion method was used to test the reaction of selected strains of Enterobacteriaceae to nine antibiotics. In total, 24 strains under Enterobacteriaceae were isolated from the respective sources and the number of each that were Escherichia coli, as confirmed by the biochemical tests were: SW (7 and 3); ChNF (5 and 3); SF (8 and 6) and CF (4 and 2). Thirteen E. coli strains fermented lactose and were Catalase positive, while only one E. coli strain from SW was non-lactose fermenter and Catalase negative.