Abstract
This study was conducted at the livestock/wildlife interface areas of national parks and traditional cattle grazing areas. The main aim of the study was to establish the occurrence of Escherichia coli serogroups isolated from Kafue lechwe antelopes (Kobus leche kafuensis) and pastoral cattle. A total of 593 faecal samples from lechwe (232) and pastoral cattle (361) were conveniently picked from the grazing pastures in the interface areas and cultured for E. coli. From each faecal sample, two or three presumptive E. coli isolates were picked to constitute 1,283 isolates with 574 from lechwe and 708 from cattle. Some of these isolates were found to be similar to Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157 on CHROMagar and sorbitol MacConkey agar. Only 18 E. coli isolates from Kafue lechwe antelopes were grouped into eight serogroups while 32 from pastoral cattle were grouped into 16 serogroups. The most prevalent type-able serogroups from lechwe antelopes and pastoral cattle were O125 (5.8%) and O29 (4.2%), respectively. On further analysis by fermentation of various sugars, some isolates showed a similar pattern suggesting that the strains were indistinguishable. Key words: Escherichia coli, diarrheagenic, Shiga toxin, Kobus leche kafuensis, pastoral cattle.
Highlights
Isolattion off Esche erichia a coli ffrom ca attle and lechwe a antelop pes at the liv vestock/wildllife interface e area o of the
This study has shown that Kafue lechwe antelopes and domestic cattle on the Kafue Flats are potential carriers of food-borne pathogens
E. coli is generally used as an indicator organism because of the ease of isolation (Anonymous, 2003)
Summary
Isolattion off Esche erichia a coli ffrom ca attle and lechwe a antelop pes at the liv vestock/wildllife interface e area o of the. This study was aimed at elucidating evidence that Kafue lechwe antelopes which are in close contact with pastoral cattle in the livestock/wildlife interface areas may be asymptomatic carriers of diarrheagenic E. coli (DEC) serogroups. The second category involved 155 faecal samples of about 5 g each from freshly voided grazing lechwe antelopes in Lochinvar (n = 110) and Blue-lagoon (n = 45).
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