THE PREVALENCE OF AVIAN PATHOGENIC Escherichia coli (APEC) IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA

KHOO L.L., HASNAH Y., ROSNAH Y., SAIFUL N., MASWATI M.A. AND RAMLAN M.

Avian colibacillosis is considered a major bacterial disease in the poultry industry world-wide and is also one of the most common avian diseases that is communicable to humans. A prevalence study on APEC was carried out in Peninsular Malaysia by Veterinary Research Institute for a period of 3 years (2007-2009). Organs, intestines, cloacal swabs and cultures received (predominantly from Perak poultry and duck farms) were cultured onto blood agar and MacConkey agar for the isolation and identification of Escherichia coli (E.coli), followed by serotyping to detect the pathogenic strains. This study was done to establish the incidence of positive infections in different type of chickens with the hope to identify the pathogenic strains potentially infecting consumers. APEC isolates commonly belong to certain serogroups such as 01, 02 and 078. A total of 3768 samples from 471 cases were screened, of which 178 isolates were APEC . A total of 141 (79%) of the isolates were E. coli 01:K1, 16 (9%) were
E. coli 02:K1 and another 21 (12%) were E. coli 078:K80. Of the 141 E. coli 01:K1 isolates, 125 (89%) were from chickens and 16 (11%) from ducks. As for the E. coli 02:K1 isolates, 12 (75%) were from chickens and 4 (25%) from ducks. For the E. coli 078:K80 isolates 18 (86%) were from chickens and 3 (14%) were from ducks. The use of a wider range of E. coli antisera in the laboratory is necessary to identify new pathogenic strains. Further to this, the use of DNA probes and PCR would be more reliable as another tool for identification of its virulence factors.