Candidiasis in Mastitic Milk and Humans in El-Beheira Province, Egypt: Isolation, Molecular Characterization, and Antifungal Susceptibility

Abstract

: The current work was carried out in El-Beheira Province, Egypt to estimate the frequency of Candida species occurrence in mastitic milk of cattle and buffalo as well as oral swabs from humans besides detection of some virulence factors and determine the antifungal susceptibility of the obtained Candida strains . A total of 350 raw milk samples were randomly collected from clinically mastitic bovine milk. Also, 140 oral swabs were obtained from patients attending external clinics of El-Delingat Hospital to be examined for the presence of Candida. The recorded results showed a high frequency of Candida spp. (36.9%) among the examined milk samples. Candida spp. isolated from cow milk (39.9%) was higher than that isolated from buffalo milk (29.3%). Also, the total prevalence of Candidiasis in human samples was 62.9% and the highest prevalence in relation to age groups was noticed in the age group > 2 - < 16 years (65.5%) and finally, the age group >40 years (58.8%). The identified Candida spp. in human samples were C. albicans (37.5%), C. glabrata (17.1%) , C. krusei (14.8%), C. parapsilosis (13.6%), C. tropicalis (11.4%), C. guilliermondii (4.5%) and C. kefyr (1.1%). It was observed that the highest prevalence of Candida species was among artificially fed infants (77.8%) and the lowest prevalence was detected in breastfed infants (53.3%). Based on the recorded results, Candida species constitute a major threat to both dairy animals and humans. Also, improperly heated milk constitutes a potential source of infection for humans so efficient pasteurization must be performed to avoid this risk.