Seals as One Health Sentinels
The rapid global spread of antimicrobial resistant bacteria represents one of the most serious threats to human health today, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people each year. So serious is the threat that some have questioned whether it should be considered the next global pandemic.
Antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence factors may spread via mobile genetic elements, especially amongst the dense bacterial populations in treatment plants. Treated and untreated sewage, hospital waste and agricultural run-off are often responsible for the spread of antimicrobial resistance in marine and freshwater ecosystems.
Dr Ana Vale, an Assistant Professor in Veterinary Public Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD, considers antimicrobial resistance to be the quintessential One Health problem that poses a threat to human, animal and ecosystem health worldwide. In her recent study, published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, lead author Vale describes how marine mammals such as seals may be studied as sentinels for human, animal and environmental health.
In collaboration with Professor Finola Leonard and Professor Gerald Barry, School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD, as well as researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, Ireland, Vale characterized faecal E. coli populations from seals rescued from coastal waters around Ireland and investigated the presence of β-lactamase encoding genes and virulence factors. In addition, cefotaxime resistant non-E. coli isolates were examined for the presence of β-lactamase encoding genes.
The study appears to be the first to report the detection of β-lactamase resistance genes in phocid faecal E. coli in Europe. The discovery highlights the potential of wild seals to serve as One Health sentinels when investigating AMR and suggests there may be scope to use these animals to explore other pressing issues such as zoonotic diseases and environmental contamination.
Read the full journal article online.
Ana P. Vale, Lynae Shubin, Juliana Cummins, Finola C. Leonard and Gerald Barry
Detection of blaOXA−1, and blaTEM−1, and Virulence Factors in E. coli Isolated from Seals
https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.583759