A longitudinal study of risk factors for shedding of VTEC O157 by young cattle in herds with known E. coli O157 carriage.

A longitudinal study in England and Wales of two dairy, five beef-fattener and three beef-suckler herds was carried out to identify risk factors for young cattle excreting verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 (VTEC O157). A total of 1383 cattle, selected into cohorts at 0-24 months were sampled between March 2000 and February 2001. Mixed-effects logistic regression was employed to identify significant associations between VTEC O157 isolation from rectal faecal samples and explanatory factors (P < 0·001 unless shown). The results revealed a positive association with feeding root crops and a negative association with animals fed silage, milk (P = 0·001) or grain (P = 0·027). Cattle in suckler herds (P = 0·001) and those changing group between sampling visits were identified as negatively associated with VTEC O157 presence. The recovery of VTEC O157 varied throughout the year. However, the winter period from December to February was a risk factor in the multivariable analysis. Cattle in pens were 4·7 times more likely to shed VTEC O157 than those group-housed or at pasture. VTEC O157 detected in pooled environmental faecal pats and biofilm of the water supply within a group's enclosure were positively associated with an animal's VTEC O157 status in the multivariable logistic regression, as was detection of VTEC O157 in the pooled faecal pats at the previous visit.

Factors influencing the presence and concentration of E. coli O157 and E. coli in farm waste on six cattle farms in North-West England.

AIMS: To investigate the factors influencing the presence and burden of Escherichia coli O157 in farm wastes. METHODS AND RESULTS: Wastes from six cattle farms were screened for the presence and concentration of E. coli O157 and E. coli on three occasions over a year and waste management data were collected. Sixty-three of 878 (7.1%) samples were positive for verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157 and 664/875 (75.9%) for E. coli with detectable levels greater in fresh waste than in stored waste, pasture or dirty water. CONCLUSIONS: The turning/stirring of stored waste and the use of more than one store (allowing longer storage times) reduced the proportion of E. coli O157 positive samples. The presence of E. coli O157 significantly reduced from a high prevalence found in fresh faeces and stored waste to lower proportions in dirty water and pasture samples. Escherichia coli O157 was only detected on pasture when waste was spread from contaminated stores the day before sampling. A high prevalence of positive E. coli O157 samples were detected when cattle were re-housed. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: These findings help to support the importance of treating and storing farm waste, as well as providing evidence for the level of dilution of E. coli O157 from fresh waste to recently spread pastures.

Short communication: turbidity as an indicator of Escherichia coli presence in water troughs on cattle farms.

Studies have shown that water-drinking troughs are an important source of Escherichia coli infection on cattle farms, and a study was designed to provide farmers with an easy-to-use tool to monitor trough contamination and help determine when to empty and clean water troughs. A total of 164 water troughs were sampled on 33 cattle farms, and the on-farm turbidity tester results were found to be significantly correlated with laboratory turbidity results. Turbidity was associated with E. coli concentration, although the association was not linear. Emptying the troughs within a week of sampling was shown to reduce the turbidity score, but no linear association between time of emptying and E. coli concentration was discovered. A turbidity score of 4 was set as a cutoff point for when to clean a trough, yielding a sensitivity of 0.94 and a specificity of 0.03 for identifying a level of E. coli concentration that was more likely to contain E. coli O157 (>5,800 cfu/100 mL).

UK surveillance: provision of quality assured information from combined datasets.

Surveillance information is most useful when provided within a risk framework, which is achieved by presenting results against an appropriate denominator. Often the datasets are captured separately and for different purposes, and will have inherent errors and biases that can be further confounded by the act of merging. The United Kingdom Rapid Analysis and Detection of Animal-related Risks (RADAR) system contains data from several sources and provides both data extracts for research purposes and reports for wider stakeholders. Considerable efforts are made to optimise the data in RADAR during the Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) process. Despite efforts to ensure data quality, the final dataset inevitably contains some data errors and biases, most of which cannot be rectified during subsequent analysis. So, in order for users to establish the 'fitness for purpose' of data merged from more than one data source, Quality Statements are produced as defined within the overarching surveillance Quality Framework. These documents detail identified data errors and biases following ETL and report construction as well as relevant aspects of the datasets from which the data originated. This paper illustrates these issues using RADAR datasets, and describes how they can be minimised.

Detection of multiple cephalosporin-resistant Escherichia coli from a cattle fecal sample in Great Britain.

We describe the isolation of multiple cephalosporin-resistant Escherichia coli from cattle feces collected from animals at slaughter in Great Britain. Six E. coli strains were isolated with distinct XbaI pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) profiles and different mechanisms of cephalosporin resistance from a single fecal sample. Two of these strains were found to contain conjugative plasmids conferring resistance to extended-spectrum cephalosporins that were indistinguishable from each other by restriction endonuclease digestion. Sequence analysis of the plasmid-encoded ampC showed that they were identical to bla(CMY-2), previously described in multiple-drug-resistant Salmonella and E. coli from animals in other parts of the world. DNA sequence analysis of the chromosomal ampC promoter regions for three cephalosporin-resistant strains lacking CMY-2 was determined. Several mutations were detected in the isolates tested including changes at positions -42 and -32, which are known to increase promoter strength. This report represents the first isolation of E. coli containing bla(CMY-2) from cattle in Great Britain, and, also to our knowledge, the first demonstration of multiple cephalosporin-resistant strains in a single animal.

Validation of a foot-and-mouth disease antibody screening solid-phase competition ELISA (SPCE).

This paper describes the validation of a solid-phase competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (SPCE) for the serological detection of antibody to serotype O foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in sheep, cattle and pigs. The specificity of the SPCE was calculated from the results of testing known negative sera from sheep, cattle and pigs (n=3030, 1418 and 1495, respectively). The mean percentage inhibition (PI) for known negative sheep, cattle and pig sera were 19.3, 24.1 and 20.8%, respectively. The specificity of the SPCE at a cut-off point (COP) of 60 PI was 99.50% for sheep sera, 99.44% for cattle sera and 100% for pig sera. The analytical sensitivity of the SPCE was examined by testing sera from sheep, cattle and pigs. Based on the testing of serial bleeds from experimentally infected animals, seroconversion at the 60 PI COP occurred between 4 and 9 days post-infection or -exposure, similar to that observed using the virus neutralisation test (VNT) with a COP of 1/45. When applied to 267 sheep and 143 pig samples, that were obtained in Great Britain (GB) during the 2001 FMD UK outbreak, the SPCE identified more positive samples than did the VNT. Estimates of the accuracy, repeatability and reproducibility of the SPCE were verified during the large-scale serosurveillance necessitated by the 2001 outbreak. Results from field and experimental sera showed that when compared against the VNT, the sensitivity of the SPCE was less affected by the choice of virus strain used in the test. Using the O(1) UKG 2001 FMD virus in the VNT with samples representative of the uninfected GB sheep population, the test specificity was 100% at a COP of 1/45.

Characterisation of attaching-effacing Escherichia coli isolated from animals at slaughter in England and Wales.

Escherichia coli isolates were recovered from faecal samples taken from cattle, sheep and pigs at slaughter in England and Wales. Isolates (n = 1227) selected at random from this collection were each hybridised in colony dot-blot experiments with an eae gene probe that presumptively identified attaching-effacing E. coli (AEEC). Of the 99 (8.1%) eae positive isolates 72 were of ovine origin, 24 were of bovine origin and three of porcine origin. None were typed as O157:H7 whereas 78 were assigned to 23 serogroups and 21 were untypable. The most frequently isolated eae positive serogroups were O156 (10), O26 (8), O103 (8), O108 (7) O56 (6) and O168 (6) of which serogroups O103 and O156 only were recovered from all three animal species. In tissue culture adherence assays, 36 representatives of eae positive isolates of all serogroups and host of origin tested induced intimate attachment with varying degrees of actin accumulation and pedestal formation in the HEp-2 cells. The identity of the eae type for these 36 was determined by specific PCR and the most prevalent intimin types were eaebeta (15), eaegamma (12) and eae (4). Isolates were examined by PCR for the presence of other virulence determinants and five possessed stx1 but none possessed stx2. One O115 eae isolate possessed cnf1 and 2, hlyA, etpD and katP genes which is a novel combination of virulence determinants.

Prevalence of antibodies to Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) in bulk tank milk in England and Wales.

In the United Kingdom, the infection of people with Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of Q fever, is of significant public health importance and is associated with contact with dairy cattle. An ELISA was developed for the detection of IgG antibodies against C burnetii in bulk tank milk, and in a survey of randomly selected samples from dairy herds in England and Wales, 21 per cent showed serological evidence of C burnetii infection.

Orf (contagious pustular dermatitis) in farmworkers: prevalence and risk factors in three areas of England.

Orf is a zoonotic skin disease which is commonly self-diagnosed by those who tend sheep and goats. This paper reports the prevalence, incidence and risk factors associated with the infection in a cohort of farmworkers from three areas of England, derived from the results of self-reporting and serology. Twenty-three per cent of those employed or living on a sheep farm reported ever having had orf, and the antibody serological profiles indicated a prevalence of 4 per cent and an annual incidence of 2.8 per cen. The main risk factors associated with the infection were contact with sheep, the size of the sheep flock, and contact with dogs.

Faecal carriage of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 in cattle and sheep at slaughter in Great Britain.

A 12-month abattoir survey was conducted between January 1999 and January 2000, to determine the prevalence of faecal carriage of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 (VTEC O157) in cattle and sheep slaughtered for human consumption in Great Britain. Samples of rectum containing faeces were collected from 3939 cattle and 4171 sheep at 118 abattoirs, in numbers proportional to the throughput of the premises. The annual prevalence of faecal carriage of VTEC O157 was 4.7 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval 4.1 to 5.4) for cattle and 1.7 per cent (1.3 to 2.1) for sheep, values which were statistically significantly different from each other (P < 0.001). The organisms were recovered from both cattle and sheep slaughtered throughout the year and at abattoirs in all regions of the country, but the highest prevalence was in the summer. The most frequency recovered VTEC O157 isolates were phage types 2, 8 and 21/28 in cattle and 4 and 32 in sheep, the five most frequently isolated phage types associated with illness in people in Great Britain during the same period.

Prevalence of faecal excretion of verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157 in cattle in England and Wales.

During the decade to 1999, the incidence of human infections with the zoonotic pathogen verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 (VTEC O157) increased in England and Wales. This paper describes the results of a survey of 75 farms to determine the prevalence of faecal excretion of VTEC O157 by cattle, its primary reservoir host, in England and Wales. Faecal samples were collected from 4663 cattle between June and December 1999. The prevalence of excretion by individual cattle was 4.2 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval [CI] 2.0 to 6.4) and 10.3 per cent (95 per cent CI 5.8 to 14.8) among animals in infected herds. The within-herd prevalence on positive farms ranged from 1.1 to 51.4 per cent. At least one positive animal was identified on 29 (38.7 per cent; 95 per cent CI 28.1 to 50.4) of the farms, including dairy, suckler and fattening herds. The prevalence of excretion was least in the calves under two months of age, peaked in the calves aged between two and six months and declined thereafter. The phage types identified most widely were 4, 34 and 2, which were each found on six of the 29 positive farms.

Longitudinal study to investigate VTEC O157 shedding patterns in young cattle.

Individual animal samples were collected from ten VTEC O157 positive farms approximately monthly over 11months to investigate the shedding of VTEC O157 by youngstock. VTEC O157 was isolated from 7.7% of the 6266 samples and 28.9% of the 1383 animals. On six of the farms VTEC O157 was isolated at multiple visits from several animals, whereas the remaining four farms had one or two positive animals at any one visit, with VTEC isolated from a maximum of four visits. A total of 92 animals were positive more than once (up to four sampling occasions) with a maximum of four negative samples between positive isolations. The results reveal a large variation in individual animal shedding patterns; the proportion of shedding animals on positive farms; and over time within the same farm. The lack of consistent shedding restricts the ability to target potential interventions to specific positive animals/groups or herds.

Investigation of farms linked to human patients with cryptosporidiosis in England and Wales.

The study investigates farms suspected of being sources of zoonotic human cryptosporidiosis. A variety of implicated farm animal species were sampled and tested to detect Cryptosporidium oocysts and investigate genetic linkage with human patients. Risk factor information was collected from each farm and analysed by multivariable logistic regression to detect significant associations between factors and Cryptosporidium in animals. The results showed that average sample prevalence of Cryptosporidium infection was highest in cattle, sheep and pigs ( approximately 40-50%), in the mid-range in goats and horses (20-25%) and lowest in rabbits/guinea pigs, chickens and other birds ( approximately 4-7%). A single sample from a farm dog was also positive. Cryptosporidium parvum, which has zoonotic potential, was the commonest species and was most likely to be present in cattle and, to a lesser extent, in sheep. In particular, young calves and lambs shed C. parvum and this finding was corroborated in a statistical model which demonstrated that samples from groups of preweaned animals were 11 times, and immature animal groups six times, more likely to be positive than groups of adult animals, and that samples from a farm with a cattle enterprise were twice as likely to be positive than farms without a cattle enterprise. On seven out of eight farms, at least one C. parvum isolate from an animal sample was indistinguishable at the gp60 locus from those found in the human patients, indicating that farm animals are a likely source of infection for humans.

Investigation of the role of companion animals in the zoonotic transmission of cryptosporidiosis.

Companion animals owned by human patients with cryptosporidiosis (cases) and those animals owned by the wider human population (controls), were studied to determine whether Cryptosporidium was more likely to be excreted by case animals than controls. A total of 280 recently voided faecal samples (114 case animals and 166 control animals) were collected and tested by immunomagnetic separation and immunofluorescent microscopy. A multivariable model was also created to identify pet characteristics, contacts and management factors associated with Cryptosporidium infection in animals, using information collected by a standardized questionnaire. The model was designed to take into account the clustering of samples at the owner level and whether the sampled animal was a case or control.

Factors related to the carriage of Verocytotoxigenic E. coli, Salmonella, thermophilic Campylobacter and Yersinia enterocolitica in cattle, sheep and pigs at slaughter.

A 12-month abattoir study was undertaken from January 2003. We collected 7492 intestinal samples from cattle, sheep and pigs at slaughter. Rectal samples were taken from cattle and sheep and caecal samples from pigs. They were examined for verocytotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC) O157, Salmonella, thermophilic Campylobacter and Yersinia enterocolitica. Data were collected on the animal from which the sample came and this information was analysed to look at potential risk factors for carriage of these organisms. Logistic regression models were run where an adequate number of positive results were available. This revealed that VTEC O157 carriage in cattle was associated with the summer period and that age was a protective factor. Salmonella carriage in pigs was associated with lairage times >12 h, the North East and not feeding when there was no bedding available. In cattle, carriage was associated with the summer period, the Eastern region of GB and dairy animals. In sheep a spring seasonal effect was seen, which coincided with the lambing period. The carriage of thermophilic Campylobacter in cattle was associated with single-species abattoirs, with age a protective factor. In sheep, winter was a risk period with lairage management influential. For pigs, lairage times of <12 h were found to be associated with carriage. A seasonal trend for carriage of Y. enterocolitica in all species was demonstrated with the period December-May a risk. For cattle, age was also a risk factor; for sheep feeding in the lairage and for pigs being held overnight were risk factors.

Intestinal carriage of verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157, Salmonella, thermophilic Campylobacter and Yersinia enterocolitica, in cattle, sheep and pigs at slaughter in Great Britain during 2003.

An abattoir survey was undertaken to determine the prevalence of foodborne zoonotic organisms colonizing cattle, sheep and pigs at slaughter in Great Britain. The study ran for 12 months from January 2003, involved 93 abattoirs and collected 7703 intestinal samples. The design was similar to two previous abattoir surveys undertaken in 1999-2000 allowing comparisons. Samples were examined for VTEC O157, Salmonella, thermophilic Campylobacter and Yersinia enterocolitica. The prevalence of VTEC O157 faecal carriage was 4.7% in cattle, 0.7% in sheep and 0.3% in pigs. A significant decrease in sheep was detected from the previous survey (1.7%). Salmonella carriage was 1.4% in cattle, a significant increase from the previous survey of 0.2%. In sheep, faecal carriage was 1.1% a significant increase from the previous survey (0.1%). In pigs, carriage was 23.4%, consistent with the previous study. Thermophilic Campylobacter spp. were isolated from 54.6% of cattle, 43.8% of sheep and 69.3% of pigs. Y. enterocolitica was isolated from 4.5% of cattle, 8.0% of sheep and 10.2% of pigs.

Human Vero cytotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) O157 infection linked to birds.

Vero cytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 (VTEC O157) infections are a threat to public health. VTEC O157 has been isolated from gulls but evidence of transmission to humans from birds has not been reported. We recount an incident of VTEC O157 infection affecting two sibling children who had no direct contact with farm animals. An outbreak control team was convened to investigate the source of infection, its likely mode of transmission, and to advise on control measures. Human and veterinary samples were examined and the human isolates were found to be identical to an isolate from a sample of bird (rook) faeces. Cattle, rabbit and environmental samples were negative. This report provides evidence that birds may act as intermediaries for human infection with VTEC O157.