Concentration and prevalence of Escherichia coli O157 in sheep faeces at pasture in Scotland.
OBJECTIVE
To study the presence, numbers and virulence profiles of Escherichia coli O157 in sheep faeces and validate the microbiological methods used to attain these data.


RESULTS
Flock level prevalence was found to be 40% (six from 15) and 6.5% of faecal samples tested were found to be positive. Two farms gave samples defined as high shedding (>10(4) CFU g(-1)), one of which comprised 91% positive samples with 13/33 at the high shedding level.


CONCLUSIONS
These data confirmed that sheep are an important reservoir of E. coli O157.


CONCLUSIONS
Sheep play a significant role in the maintenance and dispersal of E. coli O157 in the farming environment and are an important source of human infection.
Ogden
I D
ID
Department of Medical Microbiology, School of Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
MacRae
M
M
Strachan
N J C
NJ
D000818:Animals; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D004197:Disease Reservoirs; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring; D004927:Escherichia coli Infections / Q000382:microbiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000662:veterinary*; D019453:Escherichia coli O157 / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D018189:Immunomagnetic Separation; D015995:Prevalence; D012606:Scotland / Q000453:epidemiology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012757:Sheep Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000635:transmission; D034561:Sheep, Domestic; D014774:Virulence; D015047:Zoonoses