Principal Investigator/Program Director: Rankin, Shelley C A.
SPECIFIC AIMS The salmonellae are Gram negative, motile, non-spore forming bacilli which belong to the family Enterobacteriaceae. The genus Salmonella consists of only two species, Salmonella enterica and Salmonella bongori. S. enterica is divided into six subspecies and there are currently more than 2500 recognised serotypes within the genus.1 Salmonellae are ubiquitous organisms that can infect, or be isolated from, a variety of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects. There is a scarcity of information on the prevalence of Salmonella in dogs and much of the available research highlights one particular confounding factor: quite often the observed prevalence in healthy dogs equals or exceeds that observed in animals with diarrhea or animals from high risk groups) 2,3. This observation dates back more than 50 years. 4 The prevalence of Salmonella in healthy dogs has been documented to range from 0 to 43% 5 although in most current studies the prevalence figures have been much lower, and range from 0 - 3.6% 3, 6-8. The prevalence of Salmonella in pet dogs with diarrhea has been documented to range from 0 - 3.45%. 6, 9-11 The specific aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of Salmonella in dogs that present to our veterinary hospital. Two groups of dogs will be studied 1) dogs that present with diarrhea (symptomatic dogs) and 2) dogs that attend our animal wellness clinic (control dogs). 100 fecal samples will be collected from dogs in each group. Feces will be pre-enriched in Buffered Peptone Water at 35 ?C overnight and then screened with a rapid realtime PCR test for the genus Salmonella (MicroSeq(R) Salmonella spp. Detection Kit) that is AOAC approved for the detection of Salmonella in food. All positive PCR samples will be cultured to confirm the presence of Salmonella using a slightly modified FDA-BAM protocol. Isolates identified as Salmonella will be serotyped in- house at the Salmonella Reference Center at the New Bolton Center, using standard lab protocols.
The prevalence of Salmonella among healthy pet dogs has been reported in most studies to range from 0 - 3.6% and the prevalence of Salmonella in pet dogs with diarrhea also ranges from 0 - 3.5%. Given that there are 78.2 million pet dogs in the USA and assuming a maximum prevalence of 5% in affected animals there could potentially be up to 3.9 million dogs infected with Salmonella each year. The public health significance of this estimate indicates that infected or shedding dogs may be an unknown reservoir for sporadic human infections.
