This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Rwego, I. B.
Right arrow Articles by Goldberg, T. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Rwego, I. B.
Right arrow Articles by Goldberg, T. L.

Next Article 

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 2008, p. 3187-3191, Vol. 46, No. 10
0095-1137/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.00285-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

High Rates of Escherichia coli Transmission between Livestock and Humans in Rural Uganda{triangledown}

Innocent B. Rwego,1 Thomas R. Gillespie,2,3,4 Gilbert Isabirye-Basuta,1 and Tony L. Goldberg1,2,3,4*

Department of Zoology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda,1 Department of Pathobiology,2 Department of Anthropology,3 Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois4

Received 12 February 2008/ Returned for modification 7 May 2008/ Accepted 24 July 2008

Escherichia coli is a zoonotic bacterium that is important to both public health and livestock economics. To date, most studies of zoonotic E. coli transmission have been conducted in developed nations with industrialized agricultural economies. In this study, E. coli bacteria were collected from people and livestock in two communities in rural western Uganda in order to investigate patterns of interspecific bacterial transmission in a developing rural economy characterized by very close human-livestock associations. Six hundred seventy-two E. coli isolates were genotyped using repetitive element-PCR (Rep-PCR) fingerprinting, and genetic distances between populations of bacteria from different hosts and locations were calculated. Genetic distances between human and livestock bacteria were generally very low, indicating high rates of bacterial gene flow among host species. Bacteria from humans and livestock in the same communities were virtually indistinguishable genetically. Data from surveys administered at the time of sample collection showed that people who did not regularly wash their hands before eating harbored bacteria approximately twice as similar genetically to bacteria of their livestock as did people who regularly washed their hands before eating. These results suggest that both rates of human-livestock interactions and patterns of human hygiene affect human-livestock bacterial transmission in this setting. This conclusion has implications not only for human and livestock health in subsistence-based agricultural economies but also for the emergence of zoonotic diseases out of such areas as a result of increasing globalization.

* Corresponding author. Current address: Department of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 2015 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53705. Phone: (608) 263-5045. Fax: (608) 263-0438. E-mail: tgoldberg{at}vetmed.wisc.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 6 August 2008.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 2008, p. 3187-3191, Vol. 46, No. 10
0095-1137/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.00285-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»