Isolation of Non-Typhoidal Salmonella from Sheep faeces in Eastern Hararghe, Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted from October 2014 to May 2015 on sheep faeces at Eastern Hararghe to isolate non-typhoid Salmonella spp. Non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) represents an important human and animal pathogen causing gastro-enteritis on global scale. Animals are the main reservoirs for the organism. A total of 113 sheep fecal samples were collected and processed bacteriologically according to the protocol recommended by the International Standardization Organization designed for isolation of Salmonella from food and animal feces (ISO-6579, 2002) with some modifications. Among a collected 113 fecal samples, 7(6.19%) were positive for Salmonella. However, the difference was not statistically significant (p-value>0.05). Based on ages groups the highest prevalence of Salmonella isolate was obtained from old sheep 2(12.5%) and the adult sheep yields the least. But, the difference was not statistically significant (p-value>0.05). In this study the higher prevalence of Salmonella isolate was pointed out from male with 7.69% than female sheep with 5.41%, even though the association between sexes was not statistically significant (P-value>0.05). The disease was found more prevalent in the animals living together with human. In conclusion, non-typhoidal Salmonella was more prevalent in Eastern Hararghe and this study indicates that the necessity of a further investigation on the isolation, identification, serotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of non-typhoidal Salmonella in the study area.