Occurrence of Multidrug Resistant Bacteria in aquatic wildlife in Catalonia, Spain

TFM
One Health
Multidrug resistance on bacteria is one of the principal public health threats of the 21st century with severe social implications and high economical burden all over the world. Even if the resistance generation is per-se a natural evolutionary process, the regular and repeated release of AMR bacteria and AMR determinants into natural ecosystems imposes extra selective pressure that has leaded to an unprecedented emergence of MDR, XDR and PDR bacterial strains. Aquatic ecosystems have shown to be a major transmission media and all kinds of antimicrobials have been detected in different aquatic environment samples. On our study 96 aquatic-related wild animals (33 reptiles and 63 mammals) from the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Torreferrussa were sampled. Rectal or cloacal swabs samples were taken and cultured in antibiotic selective media for microbiological identification and antibiosensitivity testing. A total of 36 bacterial spp from invasive turtles and 22 from aquatic-related mammals were isolated. The recovered species (N=58) have clinical significance on emerging opportunistic nosocomial and foodborne infections: E. coli (N=13), Aeromonas spp. (N=10), Pseudomonas spp (N=9), Burkholderia cepacia (N=4), Citrobacter, Moraxella spp., Ralstonia picketti (N=3); Salmonella, Serratia, Klebsiella and Proteus spp. (N=2) and single Bordetella bronchiseptica, Mannheimia haemolitica, Morganella morganii, Providencia rettgeri, Rahnella aquatilis and Rhizobium radiobacter. 100% hold MDR profiles, 24% fit on the XDR category, moreover, Burkholderia cepacia (N=2) and Moraxella spp. (N=1) where PDR bacteria. All things considered, aquatic wildlife might not serve only as reservoirs and vectors for MDR, XDR and PDR, but also as highly effective surveillance targets to determine the extent of water-sources and neighbouring areas AMR pollution and the early detection of novel MDR profiles on bacteria of medical relevance.