Epidemiological monitoring and antimicrobial resistance profiles of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli isolates among breeder hens

Abstract

Pathogenic Escherichia coli of breeder hens in most of the cases involve to use antibiotic therapy, but for better results it is important to identify the bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics in order to avoid the selection of resistance strains. Also it causes important economic losses by morbidity wich lead to decreasing egg production, decreased growth rates, additional costs for treatment and prophylactic measures. The colibacilosis disease may occur by poor environmental conditions wich lead to decline of immunity status of hens. The obtained results showed that a high proportion (78% and 55%) of E. coli-positive samples were resistant to Ofloxacin and Gentamicin what can be concerned for poultry farmers from Republic of Moldova, due to often uses of this antibiotics in rearing proces of poultry, but high frequency of resistant isolates against Doxycycline Hydrochloride (88%) might be explained by high rates of use as prophylactic measures in breeder flock and poultry rearing. It should also be mentioned that the hight rates of antimicrobial resistance in hens suggests the possibility of vertical transmission from hatcheries, through the eggs to the next generations of poultry.