Isolation, serotyping and antibiogram of escherichia coli from neonatal kids

Diarrhoea causes high mortality in neonates particularly during the first week after birth. A study was undertaken to find out the prevalence of Escherichia coli in neonatal kids affected with diarrhoea in south Gujarat. In 2015, faecal samples (103) were collected from 0–4 week-old kids having diarrhoea. The samples were processed for detection of E. coli by cultural and biochemical techniques. E. coli were recovered in 72.81% samples on MacConkey and Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB) agar. All the 75 isolates showed characteristic I/M/Vi/C pattern of E. coli (Indole and Methylred positive, Vogues-Proskauer and Citrate utilization test negative). Among these, 35 isolates were sent to Central Research Institute, Kasauli and serotyped into nine different ‘O’ types (O2, O84, O86, O87, O101, O118, O120, O128, O141 and O157), two were untypable and six were found rough. The most predominant serotypes were O120, O141 and O157. Out of 75 isolates, high resistance was seen against Cephalexin (72 isolates) and Kanamycin (70 isolates). The study showed that E. coli, particularly, serotypes O120, O141 and O157 were predominant etiological agents of kid's diarrhoea in this region. The occurrence of type O157 and growing antibiotic resistance against cephalexin and kanamycin antimicrobials may be a major public health concern.