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The prevalence and degree of antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli found in 266 faecal samples of pig farmers was significantly lower than that observed in 285 samples obtained from their pigs. Moreover, porcine E. coli were significantly more resistant to chloramphenicol, nitrofurantoin, oxytetracycline, streptomycin and sulphamethoxazole than were farmer isolates. Resistant pig isolates showed resistance patterns mainly to oxytetracycline and streptomycin and oxytetracycline and streptomycin and sulphamethoxazole whereas the corresponding farmer isolates were mainly resistant to a single agent such as amoxycillin or sulphamethoxazole although 41 were resistant to both streptomycin and sulphamethoxazole. The resistance patterns of only 4% of farmer E. coli and those of pigs from the same farm (n = 259) showed resistance to the same antibiotics. These results suggest that the resistance of the faecal E. coli of farmers and their pigs is distinctly different.
Nijsten et al. (1996) studied this question.