Prevalence of most common human pathogenic Campylobacter spp. in dogs and cats in Styria, Austria

The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of occurrence of most common human pathogenic Campylobacter species, Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) and Campylobacter coli (C. coli), in dogs and cats in Styria, Austria. In the period from April 2010 to April 2012, 842 faecal samples from dogs and cats from Styria, Austria were examined for Campylobacter (C.) species (spp.). All samples were subjected to qualitative microbiological culture testing, and additionally, some of them have been studied using qualitative real-time PCR. In microbiological culture, 5.9% of all samples investigated were C. spp. positive. With 3.1% out of positive samples, C. jejuni was the most common type. Campylobacter upsaliensis (C. upsaliensis) was detected only in 0.5% of the samples. The remaining positive samples (2.4%) were classified as C. species (sp.). C. coli could not be found in any of the samples. A higher prevalence of C. jejuni was found in kittens with 14.3% and in diarrhoeic dogs (7.4%) and cats (23.8%). The real-time PCR revealed for dogs and cats together, 27% of C. jejuni-positive faecal and 8% positive faecal swap samples. The obtained C. jejuni strains underwent antibiotic resistance testing using three different tests (agar diffusion, MIC testing and E-test) with different numbers of antibiotics. From the antibiotics used in this study, several showed high test-dependent resistance rates (cephalexin, cefovecin, kanamycin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, penicillin G, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, marbofloxacin, nalidixic acid). Overall, the prevalence of C. spp. in this study was very low compared to others, with the exception of C. jejuni in kittens and diarrhoeic animals. The results of the real-time PCR suggest that the rate of colonization of C. jejuni was actually higher than the results of the culture showed. As the resistance rates of C. jejuni isolates partly were very high, possible transmission of (multi-) resistant C. jejuni strains to humans especially from kittens and diarrhoeic animals must be expected.