Serovars and antimicrobial resistance of non-typhoidal isolated from non-diarrhoeic dogs in Grenada, West Indies.

Non-typhoidal salmonellosis remains an important public health problem worldwide. Dogs may harbour in their intestines and can easily shed in the environment with the possibility of transmission to humans. Thus, monitoring is essential to understand the role of dogs in zoonotic transmission. The objectives of this study were to determine the shedding of by owned, apparently healthy dogs in Grenada, West Indies, to identify the serovars, and to examine their antimicrobial susceptibility profiles. Faecal samples collected during August to October, 2016 from 144 non-diarrhoeic owned dogs were examined by enrichment and selective culture for the presence of spp. Eight (5.6%) of the tested animals were culture positive, yielding 35 isolates that belonged to six serovars of subspecies . These were serovars Arechavaleta from two dogs, Arechavaleta and Montevideo from one dog, and Javiana, Rubislaw, Braenderup and Kiambu from one dog each. All these serovars have been reported as causes of human salmonellosis globally. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests on 35 isolates showed absence of resistance to the currently used drugs for cases of human salmonellosis, including ciprofloxacin and cefotaxime. One isolate (2.9%) was resistant to neomycin, two isolates (5.7%) showed intermediate susceptibility to neomycin, and another (2.9%) had intermediate susceptibility to tetracycline. This is the first report of isolation and antimicrobial susceptibilities of non-typhoidal serovars from dogs in Grenada. This study shows that dogs in Grenada may be involved in the epidemiology of salmonellosis.