The current study aimed to isolate and identify Salmonella Typhimurium from rabbits and evaluate their antimicrobial resistance. Seventy five New-Zealand breed rabbits of both sex (40 apparently healthy and 35 clinically diseased) were collected from Sharkia Province, Egypt. The collected samples from diseases cases (No=135) included raw meat, intestinal content (diarrheic), and liver (35 each). Vaginal swabs (No = 10) from aborted cases and abscess samples (No =20) were also collected. Isolation and identification of Salmonella enterica was carried out by standard methods. The isolates were characterized by using serological test, phagetyping, genus specific PCR and antimicrobial sensitivity tests.
The overall prevalence of S. Typhimurium in the examined rabbit samples was 7.40% (10/135). S. Typhimurium was more frequently detected in vaginal swab (aborted cases) and diarrheic faeces with a frequency of 40% (4/10) and 14.29(5/35), respectively. Nevertheless, it was lower in the examined liver samples with a percentage of 5(1/35). S. Typhimurium was absent in apparently healthy rabbit samples. It was found that all S. Typhimurium isolates phage-typed as DT104. All PCR products of isolates include positive control, screened by PCR, resulted in 186 bp amplified fragment. No amplified DNA fragments were obtained from non-Salmonella species.
Conclusively, it was concluded that rabbit is a potential reservoir for salmonellosis. The conservative Salmonella serotypes in the present study, was S. Typhimurium DT104. Multiresistance phenonmena was emergent in the circulating Salmonella strains in rabbit sources.