Antimicrobial resistance is one of the major public health threats globally. This challenge has been aggravated with the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in food animals and humans. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of Extended-Spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) genes in Escherichia coli (E. coli) isolated from broiler chickens in Kelantan, Malaysia. A total of 320 cloacal swabs were collected from farms in different districts of Kelantan and were analyzed using routine bacteriology, antimicrobial susceptibility test, and molecular techniques for further identification and characterization of ESBL encoding genes. Based on PCR detection for the E. coli species-specific Pho gene, 30.3% (97/320) of isolates were confirmed as E. coli, and 84.5% (82/97) of the isolates were positive for at least one ESBL gene. Majority of the isolates, 62.9% (61/97) were harboring bla_CTX-M followed by 45.4% (44/97) of bla_TEM genes, while 16.5% (16/97) of the isolates were positive for both mcr-1 and ESBL genes. Overall, 93.8% (90/97) of the E. coli were resistant to three or more antimicrobials; indicating that the isolates were multi-drug resistance. 90.7% of multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index value greater than 0.2, would also suggest the isolates were from high-risk sources of contamination. The MLST result shows that the isolates are widely diverse. Our findings provide insight into the alarmingly high distribution of antimicrobial resistant bacteria, mainly ESBL producing E. coli in apparently healthy chickens indicating the role of food animals in the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance, and the potential public health threats it may pose.

Infants infected during pregnancy or while breastfeeding requires early HIV diagnosis at 6 weeks after birth to identify HIV infection and timely treatment. The objective of this work was to determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of HIV among HIV exposed infants in the Tigray regional state, Northern Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 350 exposed infants born to HIV seropositive mothers from September 01 to December 30, 2016. Convenient consecutive sampling technique was employed to enroll HIV exposed infants from age 6 weeks to 18 months attending prevention of mother to child transmission (PMCT) clinic at Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) site facility in Tigray, Ethiopia. Sociodemographic data and associated risk factors were collected using a structured questionnaire. Dried Blood Spot (DBS) samples were collected from each infant and transported by post to Tigray Health Research Institute to detect HIV infection using real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Data were entered into EPI Info version 7, exported and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. p-value less than 0.05 was deemed to be statistically significant by Fisher’s exact test. Three hundred forty infants (175 males, 165 females) met the criteria for selection during the completion of the study and the overall HIV prevalence was found to be 2.1% (n = 7). The majority of infants were from urban areas (n = 246, 72.4%). 45.5% (5/11, p = 0.001) infants were without ARV prophylaxis, 60% (3/5, p = 0.001) infants born to mothers who did not take maternal PMTCT intervention, 43% (3/7, p = 0.001) infants born to mothers who were not enrolled to ART care, and 6.1% (4/66, p = 0.029) infants of unmarried mothers showed statistically significant difference. The overall prevalence of HIV among exposed infants was high but lower than the Millennium Development Goal targets. In order to eliminate the mother to child HIV transmission (MTCT) ARV prophylaxis in infants must be strengthened, and enrollment of HIV positive pregnant women to PMTCT and ART care and treatment is needed.

The uncontrolled usage of antibiotics, especially colistin as growth promoter in poultry and the manures utilized as fertilizers in vegetable farming serve as the fundamental causes of mobilized colistin resistance (mcr) gene emergence in Escherichia coli (E. coli). This study was conducted to determine the prevalence, antibiotic susceptibility profile and phylogroups of colistin resistant E. coli isolated from poultry farm (217 chicken cloacal swab), 200 raw chicken meat and 100 vegetables samples from markets in Kelantan, Malaysia. The samples were processed using routine microbiological method, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect colistin resistant E. coli isolates, disk diffusion antimicrobial susceptibility tests with 13 antibiotics, colistin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test and PCR based phylogroups detection. The overall E. coli prevalence was 71.0% (367/517) and 3.9% (20/517) isolates harboured multiple mcr-genes (mcr-1, mcr-3, mcr-6, mcr-8 and mcr-9) from chicken origin only, while no mcr detected was in vegetables. The findings revealed that 89 – 100% E. coli isolates from chickens were resistant towards tetracycline, ampicillin, amoxicillin, and chloramphenicol with multiple antibiotic resistance index score of more than 0.2 yet the vegetable isolates were showing higher sensitivity towards these antibiotics. The ten mcr-harbouring isolates exhibited phenotypic colistin resistance at MIC ≥ 4 µg/ml. Meanwhile, phylogroup A (45.1%) and phylogroup B1 (20%) were predominating in chicken whereas phylogroup A (59.4%) was highlighted in vegetable origin isolates. These findings underscore the emerging threat of multidrug resistance and increasing trends of mcr in E. coli, mainly in food animals in Malaysia.