Abstract
The carriage rate of Salmonella in the gut of three lizard species, namely the Agama lizard (Agama agama) (64), the wall gecko (Geckonidae) (60), the ‘snake lizard’ (Ameiva ameiva) (52), and 60 samples of lizard dropping; and their survival under various environmental conditions was investigated. A gastrointestinal Salmonella carriage rate of 32, 39 and 48% were observed for the wall gecko, the Agama and ‘snake’ lizards respectively. An isolation rate of 35% was also recorded for pooled lizard droppings. Salmonella survived in the droppings for 4 weeks in tap water and wet sand, 6 weeks in direct contact with air and up to 8 weeks when mixed with dry sand. An inoculum of 106 c.f.u./g of a pure Salmonella isolate obtained from the lizard droppings proliferated extensively in sterile wet and dry soil samples, but decreased rapidly in the other environments. Salmonella was still detectable after 3 weeks in non-sterile wet and dry soil samples, up to 2 weeks in tap water, and approximately 8 days in powdered milk and ‘gari’. The potential public health significance of the observations is discussed.
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Otokunefor, T., Kindzeka, B., Ibiteye, I. et al. Salmonella in gut and droppings of three pest lizards in Nigeria. World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology 19, 545–548 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025162517741
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025162517741