Occurrence and risk factors associated with pathogenic E. coli in diarrheic calves

Abstract

Bacteriological examination of fecal swabs collected from healthy (H) and diarrheic (D) calves, revealed isolation of 26 E. coli isolates from 56 calves with an incidence (46.4%). The serological tests for representative number of samples from every farm identified O1, O26, O44, O55, O115, O119, O125, O146, O151 and 2 samples were untyped. The isolates were sensitive to norofloxacin and gentamicin with 76.9% and resistant to Ampicillin and Cefotaxim with 100%.The PCR for 4 gene ompA, stx1, stx2 and eaeA, detected ompA gene in all 26(100%) fecal samples, multiplies a region of 919bp, stx1 gene multiplies a region of 614pb in 1(3.8%) isolate, eaeA gene was in 5 (19.2%) isolates, and no evidence for presence of stx2 in all 26 E. coli isolates.