Observations on Emerging Zoonotic Enteric Bacterial Pathogens

Abstract

Concern of human disease due to gastrointestinal pathogens, Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Vibrio spp., Escherichia coli, and Yersinia enterocolitica continues worldwide.
For prevention and control of outbreaks, it is important to have knowledge of the sources of infection or the animal reservoirs. In Grenada, we isolated several potentially human pathogenic
serovars of Salmonella from animals in the last few years. These included Salmonella enterica
serovars Javiana, Rubislaw, and Montevideo from free-living cane toads.1
A somewhat similar
picture was evident with regard to mongoose, another wild animal in Grenada. The most common serovars were Javiana and Montevideo.2
Of these, serovar Javiana had emerged as a human pathogen in the United States a few years ago. Our isolates showed absence of resistance
to the currently used antibiotics for cases of human salmonellosis, including ciprofloxacin and
cefotaxime. In another recent study done in Grenada, we isolated S. Saintpaul and S. Montevideo from blue land crabs. In the Caribbean, S. Saintpaul has been frequently isolated from humans.3
On the other hand, Rubislaw was the most common serovar from green iguanas (Iguana
iguana), and some isolates showed reduced susceptibility to cefotaxime.4
Blue land crabs and
green iguanas are used as human food in Grenada, which is a matter of concern when these
animals may carry pathogenic Salmonella strains with drug resistance.