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. 2025 Jan 8;11(1):3.
doi: 10.1186/s40813-024-00419-0.

Serotype distribution and antimicrobial susceptibility of Streptococcus suis isolates from porcine diagnostic samples in Hungary, 2020-2023

Ervin Albert  1   2 , István Emil Kis  1 , Krisztián Kiss  3 , Katalin K-Jánosi  4 , Tamás Révész  5 , Imre Biksi  1
Affiliations

Serotype distribution and antimicrobial susceptibility of Streptococcus suis isolates from porcine diagnostic samples in Hungary, 2020-2023

Ervin Albert et al. Porcine Health Manag. .

Abstract

Background: Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is a major swine pathogen and a significant zoonotic agent, causing substantial economic losses in the swine sector and having considerable public health importance. The control and management of S. suis-related conditions has become increasingly challenging due to the multitude of involved serotypes with varying antimicrobial resistance patterns. Here, we report the serological distribution and antimicrobial susceptibility of S. suis isolates isolated form clinical samples of Hungarian large-scale swine farms.

Results: Between 2020 and 2023, altogether 296 S. suis isolates were obtained from diseased pigs of 64 Hungarian pig operations. Serotyping of the isolates was carried out by using molecular methods (cps-typing). The isolated strains belonged to 24 single cps-types. The most frequently detected cps-types during the four years of this passive survey were 9 (19.6%), 2 (19.3%), 1/2 (18.9%) and 7 (14.5%). The brain, spleen, endocardial valve thrombus and lung proved to be the most frequent site of S. suis strain isolation, and animals 29-75 days of age were affected in the highest proportion. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the isolates was performed by determining the minimal inhibitory concentration for 15 antimicrobial agents of veterinary and human importance using a commercial microdilution assay. More than 90% of the tested isolates proved to be susceptible to the examined beta-lactams, cephalosporins and florfenicol, as well as to rifampicin, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and vancomycin. Phenotypic resistance profiles (resistotypes) of clindamycin-tetracyclin (3.8%), clindamycin-erythromycin-tetracyclin (8.4%) and clindamycin-erythromycin-tetracyclin-trimethoprim / sulfamethoxazole (3.8%) were most frequently detected. Vancomycin resistance was observed in the case of 1 S. suis strain.

Conclusions: The dominance of S. suis cps-types 9, 2, 1/2 and 7 in Hungary over the four years of this study aligns with previous reports from several countries worldwide. The presence of highly susceptible S. suis isolates suggests a prudent antibiotic usage and treatment practice in the surveyed Hungarian swine operations. In contrary, the presence of several resistotypes could indicate the problem of antibiotic resistance in the future.

Keywords: Cps-type; Streptococcus suis; AMR; Antimicrobial resistance profile; Antimicrobial susceptibility; Resistotype; Serotype.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The cadavers and organ collections were referred to the Livestock Diagnostic Centre (Department of Pathology, University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest, Üllő, Hungary) for laboratory diagnostics. All the investigations were performed on deceased animals and organs of them, therefore ethics approval and a consent to participate are not applicable, as well as no protocol approval of any ethical committee was required. Informed consent was received from all animal owners. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: None other than the authors had an interest in the outcome of the current work. All the processes in this work, including conception, planning, research design, analysis and preparing the manuscript were decided by the authors, independently from any of interests. Thus, the authors have no conflicts of interest to declare regarding the publication of this article. The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Geographical distribution of Hungarian swine farms involved in the study. Overall, 62 points are indicated on the map, because two farms are at the same settlement, and the origin of 1 sample in 2021 is unknown
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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