Prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of Escherichia coli O157:H7 isolated from harvested fish at Lake Hayq and Tekeze dam, Northern Ethiopia

Antimicrobial use, residues and resistance in fish production in Africa: systematic review and meta-analysis

In low- and middle-income countries, data on antimicrobial use (AMU) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in aquaculture are scarce. Therefore, summarizing documented data on AMU, antimicrobial residue (AR), and AMR in aquaculture in Africa is key to understanding the risk to public health. Google Scholar, PubMed, African Journals online, and Medline were searched for articles published in English and French following the PRISMA guidelines. A structured search string was used with strict inclusion and exclusion criteria to retrieve and screen the articles. The pooled prevalence and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for each pathogen-antimicrobial pair using random effects models. Among the 113 full-text articles reviewed, 41 met the eligibility criteria. The majority of the articles reported AMR (35; 85.4%), while a few were on AMU (3; 7.3%) and AR (3; 7.3%) in fish. The articles originated from West Africa (23; 56.1%), North Africa (8; 19.7%), and East Africa (7; 17.1%). Concerning the antimicrobial agents used in fish farming, tetracycline was the most common antimicrobial class used, which justified the high prevalence of residues (up to 56.7%) observed in fish. For AMR, a total of 69 antimicrobial agents were tested against 24 types of bacteria isolated. Bacteria were resistant to all classes of antimicrobial agents and exhibited high levels of multidrug resistance. Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp., and Staphylococcus spp. were reported in 16, 10, and 8 studies, respectively, with multidrug resistance rates of 43.1% [95% CI (32.0-55.0)], 40.3% [95% CI (24.1-58.1)] and 31.3% [95% CI (17.5-49.4)], respectively. This review highlights the high multidrug resistance rate of bacteria from aquaculture to commonly used antimicrobial agents, such as tetracycline, ampicillin, cotrimoxazole, gentamicin, and amoxicillin, in Africa. These findings also highlighted the lack of data on AMU and residue in the aquaculture sector, and additional efforts should be made to fill these gaps and mitigate the burden of AMR on public health in Africa.

Isolation and identification of major bacteria from three Ethiopian rift valley lakes live and processed fish, and water samples: implications in sanitary system of fish products

Bacterial pathogens are a great threat to fish production. Gram-negative bacteria are among the major bacterial fish pathogens and are zoonotic with the potential to infect humans. This cross-sectional study was conducted to isolate and identify major gram-negative bacteria from live and processed fish, and water samples from Lakes Hawassa, Langanoo and Ziway. A total of 674 different types of samples: 630 tissue samples (210 samples for each intestine, Kkidney and liver collected from 210 live fish (Oreochromis niloticus, Cyprinus carpio and Clarias gariepinus), 20 processed fish samples from lake Ziway fish processing center and 24 lake water samples were included in the study from each lake. The mean values of pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen and nitrate in all water samples were within the normal range at which most freshwater fish species become non-stressed. Of a total of 674 samples included in the study, bacteria were isolated from 154(22.8%) samples with significant difference (P < 0.05) observed in some isolates with respect to sample origin. Of these 154 isolates, 103(66.8%) isolates were gram-negative bacteria consisting of 15 species based on morphology and a range of biochemical tests. From live fish samples, Escherichia coli was the dominant species with 15 isolates followed by Edwardsiella tarda (12), Salmonella Paratyphi (10), Salmonella Typhi (9),  Shigella dysenteriae (7), Shigella flexneri (7), Klebsiella pneumonia (7), Enterobacter aerogenes (6), Enterobacter cloacae (5), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (5), Vibrio parahemolyticus (5), Aeromonas sobria (4), Citrobacter freundii (4), Citrobacter koseri (4) and Plesiomonas shigelloides (3). The detection of the common fecal coliforms (E. coli, K. pneumoniae and E. aerogenes) and Salmonella spp. in processed fish indicates the potential danger of passage of pathogenic bacteria and/or their poisons to humans via infected and/or contaminated fish products. Human infection by pathogenic fish bacteria and food poisoning is possible through contamination of fish product in fish production chain due to inadequate handling, poor hygiene and contact with contaminated water. Therefore, producers, consumers and all other stakeholders need to be cautious during handling, processing and consumption of fish harvested from the study lakes.

Food safety knowledge and practice of abattoir and butcher shop workers: a health risk management perspective

BACKGROUND

Meat is rich in essential proteins and valuable nutrients for human health. Despite these benefits, it is a favorable medium for microbial growth and transmission to humans unless recommended safety procedures are followed. This research aimed to assess the level of knowledge and practice of the abattoir and butcher shop workers who were working in the meat value chain.

METHODS

The cross-sectional study design, using structured questionnaire interviews was used to assess the knowledge and practice of abattoir and butcher shop workers. A total of 226 randomly selected workers were participated in this study and bivariate logistic regression was used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Of 226 total participants, 46% were abattoir workers and 54% were butcher shop workers. Majority (88.9%) of the participants did not know about meat safety and 74.3% of the participants had insufficient practices. The cumulative knowledge of both abattoir and butcher shop workers was significantly associated (p = 0.001) with their knowledge of the presence of diseases causing agents in meat, the source of meat contamination, and the common critical points of meat contamination along the meat value chain. The cumulative practice of abattoir workers was significantly associated with their practices on daily meat transporting vehicle washing (p = 0.007), reducing meat contamination (p = 0.001), duration of animal fasting before slaughter (p = 0.039), cleaning of the animal body before slaughter (p = 0.002), cleaning material used in the abattoir (p = 0.003), disposal of abattoir waste (p = 0.002), and type of biosecurity measures used (p = 0.013). Similarly, the cumulative practice of butcher shop workers was associated (p = 0.001) with their practices of attracting customers, storing remaining meat from daily sales, and measures on contaminated food. Employment of the participants was significantly associated with both the cumulative knowledge (p = 0.007) and practice (p = 0.001) of the participants while the age of the participants was associated (p = 0.001) with only their cumulative practices.

CONCLUSIONS

In general, the participants' food safety knowledge and practice were unsatisfactory. As a result, the integrated food safety policy formulation in a One Health framework, and collaborative awareness creation among different food safety stakeholders were recommended.

Prevalence and epidemiological distribution of selected foodborne pathogens in human and different environmental samples in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Bacterial Foodborne Pathogens (FBP) are the commonest cause of foodborne illness or foodborne diseases (FBD) worldwide. They contaminate food at any stages in the entire food chain, from farm to dining-table. Among these, the Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli (DEC), Non typhoidal Salmonella (NTS), Shigella spp. and Campylobacter spp. are responsible for a large proportion of illnesses, deaths; and, particularly, as causes of acute diarrheal diseases. Though existing studies indicate the problem may be severe in developing countries like Ethiopia, the evidence is commonly based on fragmented data from individual studies. A review of published and unpublished manuscripts was conducted to obtain information on major FBP and identify the gaps in tracking their source attributions at the human, animal and environmental interface. A total of 1753 articles were initially retrieved after restricting the study period to between January 2000 and July 2020. After the second screening, only 51 articles on the humans and 43 on the environmental sample based studies were included in this review. In the absence of subgroups, overall as well as human stool and environmental sample based pooled prevalence estimate of FBP were analyzed. Since, substantial heterogeneity is expected, we also performed a subgroup analyses for principal study variables to estimate pooled prevalence of FBP at different epidemiological settings in both sample sources. The overall random pooled prevalence estimate of FBP (Salmonella, pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli), Shigella and Campylobacter spp.) was 8%; 95% CI: 6.5-8.7, with statistically higher (P <  0.01) estimates in environmental samples (11%) than in human stool (6%). The subgroup analysis depicted that Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli contributed to 5.7% (95% CI: 4.7-6.8) and 11.6% (95% CI: 8.8-15.1) respectively, of the overall pooled prevalence estimates of FBD in Ethiopia. The result of meta-regression showed, administrative regional state, geographic area of the study, source of sample and categorized sample size all significantly contributed to the heterogeneity of Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli estimates. Besides, the multivariate meta- regression indicated the actual study year between 2011 and 2015 was significantly associated with the environmental sample-based prevalence estimates of these FBP. This systematic review and meta-analysis depicted FBP are important in Ethiopia though majority of the studies were conducted separately either in human, animal or environmental samples employing routine culture based diagnostic method. Thus, further FBD study at the human, animal and environmental interface employing advanced diagnostic methods is needed to investigate source attributions of FBD in one health approach.

Antimicrobial activity of MccJ25(G12Y) against gram-negative foodborne pathogens in vitro and in food models

The use of bacteriocins is a promising alternative to improve food security through the biocontrol of food pathogens and spoilage microorganisms. Gram-negative produced microcin J25(G12Y), known as (MccJ25(G12Y)) is a variant of the well-studied and characterized antimicrobial peptide, microcin J25 (MccJ25). In the present work, we explored the activity of this microcin against Gram-negative bacteria linked to foodborne diseases. We evaluated the in vitro antimicrobial activity of MccJ25(G12Y) in solid medium against a collection of pathogenic and food-altering strains and studied its activity and stability in meat and dairy food systems. We show that MccJ25(G12Y) exhibited the same in vitro antimicrobial spectrum as its parental microcin (MccJ25) against different Gram-negative foodborne pathogens and spoilage strains. We highlight that low concentrations of MccJ25(G12Y) between 0.45 and 29.4 μM were able to inhibit a substantial number of pathogens, including Salmonella, Escherichia, Shigella and Enterobacter genus. We also demonstrate the antimicrobial effectiveness of the peptide against Escherichia coli O157:H7 NCTC 12900, Enterobacter cloacae CECT 194, and Salmonella enterica CECT 4396 in fish and beef burgers and yogurt. MccJ25(G12Y) was added or not to food matrices inoculated with the foodborne pathogens at 10⁵ CFU/g or mL. Afterward, food products were stored at 4 °C and selective media for the specific enumeration were used to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of each pathogen to MccJ25(G12Y). The viability of the three pathogens was significantly reduced in the different food biological environments. In yogurt, the peptide decreased E. coli numbers on day 5 by about 4 log 10 CFU/mL as compared to non-treated samples. For S. enterica and E. cloacae no viable cells were detected at the end of the treatment. Adding MccJ25(G12Y) to fish burgers decreased E. cloacae numbers during storage 2 log₁₀ CFU/g on the first day, reaching a difference of about 5 log 10 CFU/g after 10 days compared to non-treated control. Finally, the peptide decreased E. coli O157:H7 numbers on the beef burgers samples during storage on day 10 by about 3 log 10 CFU/g as compared to non-treated samples. The stability analysis demonstrated that MccJ25(G12Y) is capable of remaining active in these food matrices for a considerable time during the storage at refrigeration temperatures. These results reinforce the studies on the potential applicability of this microcin as a biopreservative in the food industry.

Escherichia coli O15 : H7 from Food of Animal Origin in Arsi: Occurrence at Catering Establishments and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profile

Escherichia coli O157 : H7 (E. coli O157 : H7) has been found to be the major cause of food-borne diseases and a serious public health problem in the world, with an increasing concern for the emergence and spread of antimicrobial-resistant strains. Hitherto, little is known about the carriage of E. coli O157 : H7 and its antimicrobial susceptibility profile in the food of animal origin in Ethiopia. This study aimed to determine the occurrence and multidrug resistance profile of E. coli O157 : H7 from food of animal origin at different catering establishments in the selected study settings of Arsi Zone. One hundred ninety-two animal origin food items, namely, raw/minced meat (locally known as “Kitfo,” “Kurt,” and “Dulet”), raw milk, egg sandwich, and cream cake samples were collected and processed for microbiological detection of E. coli O157 : H7. Out of 192 samples, 2.1% (4/192) were positive for E. coli O157 : H7. Two E. coli O157 : H7 isolates were obtained from “Dulet” (6.3%) followed by “Kurt” (3.1%, 1/32) and raw milk (3.1%, 1/32), whereas no isolate was obtained from “Kitfo,” egg sandwich, and cream cake samples. Of the 4 E. coli O157 : H7 isolates subjected to 10 panels of antimicrobial discs, 3 (75%) were highly resistant to kanamycin, streptomycin, and nitrofurantoin. Besides, all the isolates displayed multidrug resistance phenotypes, 3 to 5 antimicrobial resistance, amid kanamycin, streptomycin, nitrofurantoin, tetracycline, and chloramphenicol. The occurrence of multidrug-resistant E. coli O157 : H7 isolates from foods of animal origin sampled from different catering establishments reveals that the general sanitary condition of the catering establishments, utensils used, and personnel hygienic practices did not comply with the recommended standards. Thus, this finding calls for urgent attention toward appropriate controls and good hygienic practices in different catering establishments dealing with consuming raw/undercooked foods of animal origin.