ESBL-Producing -The Contribution of Wild Birds in the Dissemination of a Zoonotic Pathogen.

is an Enterobacteriaceae with unclarified dispersion and pathogenicity. During an ongoing investigation about antimicrobial resistance in Greece, the occurrence of was evaluated among wild birds and humans. A total of 445 wild bird and 2000 human fecal samples were collected and screened for the presence of the organism. Subsequently, all strains were phenotypically and molecularly characterized regarding their antimicrobial resistance characteristics. Four were isolated from a common pheasant (), two Eurasian magpies () and a great white-fronted goose (). Among these four strains, the three latter presented resistance to 3rd generation cephalosporins, were phenotypically confirmed to produce ESBLs and were found to harbor . The three ESBL isolates additionally exhibited resistance to tetracyclines, while resistance to aminoglycosides was detected in two of them and to trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole in one. No strains were retrieved from the human samples tested. This is the first report that provides evidence of dissemination among wild birds in Greece, describing CTX-M-1 production in multidrug resistant wild birds' isolates of this bacterial species.