Prevalence and Antibiotic Resistance of <i>Escherichia coli</i> Isolated from Raw Cow’s Milk
2025
Roxana Ionela Drugea | Mădălina Iulia Siteavu | Elena Pitoiu | Cristina Delcaru | Ecaterina Monica Sârbu | Carmen Postolache | Stelian Bărăităreanu
<i>Escherichia coli (E. coli)</i> is one of the most common pathogens in both humans and livestock. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of <i>E. coli</i> isolated from raw cow milk and evaluate its antimicrobial resistance rates. A total of 1696 milk samples were collected from Romanian dairy farms from 2018 to 2022. <i>E. coli</i> was isolated on various selective agar media, such as Cled agar and Columbia Agar with 5% Sheep Blood. The identification of <i>E. coli</i> was performed by MALDI-TOF MS. <i>E. coli</i> isolates were tested for their susceptibility against 18 commonly used antibiotics in a disk diffusion method. The overall prevalence of <i>E. coli</i> was 22.45% of all isolated pathogens. Antibiogram analysis revealed that 27.51% of <i>E. coli</i> isolates from milk were multidrug-resistant. Resistance was highest for penicillin–novobiocin (87.78%), followed by streptomycin (53.7%). Resistance to six drugs (amoxicillin, streptomycin, kanamycin–cephalexin, marbofloxacin, ampicillin) showed a significant increasing trend over time, while for two drugs (penicillin G-framycetin, doxycycline), a significant decrease was observed. Our results suggest that milk can be a reservoir of bacteria with the potential for infection in humans via the food chain. Furthermore, there is a need for surveillance and monitoring to control the increase in resistance to currently used antimicrobials in dairy farms because the occurrence of multidrug-resistant <i>E. coli</i> isolated from milk poses a health hazard to consumers.
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