Antibiotic resistance profile of Escherichia coli from clinically healthy pigs and their commercial farm environments

The study was conducted to determine the antibiotic resistance profile of Escherichia coli isolated from clinically healthy pigs and their commercial farm environments. Differential and selective media were used to isolate a total of 142 E. coli strains from 202 samples. These were tested against 16 antibiotics using the disc diffusion method. The isolates showed high resistance rates to Cefuroxime (89.4%), Nitrofurantoin (89.4%), Tetracycline (74.6%), Ceftazidime (73.9%), Cefotaxime (72.5%) and Cephalexin (53.5%). Rates of resistance to Septrin and Chloramphenicol were moderate (12.7 to 39.4%), while low rates were recorded for Gentamycin (0.09%), Ciprofloxacine (0.08%), Perfloxacine (0.05%), Augumentine (0.06%), Nalidixic acid (0.07%), Streptomycin (0.05%) and Ofloxacine (0.05%). A total of 78 resistance patterns were identified. The high rates of resistance, as well as the large number of resistant patterns recorded in the absence of the use of antibiotics for growth promotion or as prophylactics suggested that antibiotics are not the only selective factors for antibiotic resistance.