Epidemiological characteristics of Salmonella spp. isolated from different stages of commercial swine farms

Epidemiological characteristics of Salmonella spp. isolated from different stages of commercial swine farms

Epidemiological characteristics of a total of 48 swine herd with diarrhea or a history of diarrhea in Gyeongsang-do between 1999 and 2000 were performed to evaluate the prevalence of Salmonella spp., their serotypes and antibiotic resistance patterns with respect to the different stages of swine production system. A total of 139 Salmonella spp. (21%) were isolated from 662 fecal samples and the overall herd prevalence of Salmonella spp. ranged from 12.5% to 88%. The average prevalence of Salmonella spp. from swine stages of suckling/nursery, grow/finisher and sow stage were 25.7%, 19.2% and 18.4%, respectively. Ten serotypes of Salmonella spp. were identified with a predominance of S. Typhimurium, S. Derby and S. Agona. Twenty-five isolates (18%) were found to be untypable. One hundred and two Salmonella isolates (73.4%) resistant to more than 1 antibiotic were characterized by 24 diverse resistance patterns, and their frequency of antibiotic resistance was highest in grow/finisher stage (83.3%). Resistance to tetracycline (TE; 67.6%), sulfamethoxazole (SU; 46.8%) and streptomycin (ST; 28%) was most common and the most common resistance patterns were TE SU (31.4%), TE (21.6%) and TE SU ST (20.6%) in order.