Abstract
During religious, cultural and other human entertainment activities domesticated elephants come into close contact with humans creating a potential disease transmission threat between elephants and humans. The main objective of the study was to screen the elephants participated in the Esala Perahera 2015 for the zoonotic bacterial pathogens namely Salmonella, Campylobacter and Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Further, the antimicrobial susceptibility of the fecal E. coli and zoonotic pathogens isolated were determined to identify multidrug resistant organisms. The isolation rates for E.coli and Salmonella were 100% and 8%, respectively while Campylobacter was not isolated from any of the fecal samples collected. Three of the four Salmonella isolates were resistant to ampicillin and tetracycline and all four isolates were susceptible to nalidixic acid, streptomycin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim combination, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, imipenem and amikacin. A number of E.coli isolates were resistant to ampicillin (8%), sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim combination (8%), tetracycline (8%), ceftriaxone (8%), amikacin (6%), nalidixic acid (4%), imipenem (4%), gentamicin (2%), streptomycin (2%), ceftazidime (2%) and ciprofloxacin (2%). However, all tested E.coli isolates were susceptible to cefotaxime. Further, 8% of the E. coli isolates showed resistance to three or more antimicrobial groups used and can be classified as multidrug resistant. None of the elephants yielded a positive result for the fecal PCR assay indicating that the animals did not excrete pathogenic mycobacteria in their feces.
Highlights
The captive elephants have been a part of Sri Lankan culture for hundreds of years and have played an important role in warfare, economy, and religious activities
None of the samples became positive for the fecal PCR assay indicating that the elephants were not shedding organisms belonging to Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in their feces
PCR assay using human subjects and shown that it is a sensitive (~80%) and a specific (100%) assay to detect zoonotic mycobacteria (Kulasooriya et al, 2016a and Kulasooriya et al, 2016b). This same method has been applied to confirm the diagnosis of tuberculosis in elephants previously (Kumara et al, 2015)
Summary
The captive elephants have been a part of Sri Lankan culture for hundreds of years and have played an important role in warfare, economy, and religious activities. Sri Lanka has about 150 domesticated elephants and many of them are owned by temples, zoos, elephant orphanages, nonprofit organizations and private owners These captive elephants take part in elephant shows, safaris, hauling logs in difficult terrains, religious and cultural activities and other human entertainment work. During these activities, elephants come into close contact with humans creating a great potential to transmit diseases from elephants to humans (zoonotic diseases) and vice versa. At present antimicrobial resistance has become a global public health issue due to the widespread participation large number of elephants. During this procession thousands of people, including tourists, come into a very close contact with the elephants. The objective of this study was to screen elephants that took part in Esala Perahera in the year of 2015 for a range of zoonotic pathogens including Salmonella, Campylobacter and Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and to determine theoccurrence of multidrugresistanceamong fecal E. coli and isolated pathogens
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