Zoonotic E. coli accounted for an estimated 18% of community UTIs across eight Southern California counties, rising to 21.5% in high-poverty neighborhoods; women had higher zoonotic proportions than men, and affected men were older. Investigators analyzed 23,483 urine isolates and 12,616 retail-meat samples (2017–2021), sequencing 5,728 genomes and using a Bayesian latent class model to infer host origin. Clinical and meat isolates showed distinct lineage and resistance profiles, with zoonotic clinical isolates more similar to meat isolates than to other clinical isolates. Limitations included inability to assign infections to specific meat types, absence of cattle/beef genomes in model training, outpatient focus, and inability to separate foodborne from other exposure pathways.

Source: ASM Journals