A two-dose regimen of a vaccine against Escherichia coli O157:H7 type III secreted proteins reduced environmental transmission of the agent in a large-scale commercial beef feedlot clinical trial.

A clinical vaccine trial of commercially fed cattle tested the effect of a two-dose regimen of a vaccine product against type III secreted proteins of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 on the probability of detecting the organism on environmental sampling devices. Within commercial feedlots, pens of vaccinated and unvaccinated cattle were matched by reprocessing schedule and time of sampling. Vaccine was administered to all cattle within treated pens at arrival processing and again at re-implant processing. Pens of cattle were sampled 1 week after the second dose of vaccine and every 3 weeks for four test periods. Pair-matched pens of cattle were sampled concurrently. Test samples were seven ropes per pen hung overnight from the feed-bunk neck-rail (ROPES). Recovery of E. coli O157:H7 from at least one rope classified pens ROPES-positive. E. coli O157:H7 isolates were identified by standard biochemical methods and multiplex polymerase chain reaction. The probability for pens of cattle to test ROPES-positive was modeled using multilevel logistic regression with variance adjustment for clustering by matched pens and repeated measures. We studied 140 pens of cattle representing 20,556 cattle in 19 feedlots February through October 2004. Vaccinated pens of cattle were less likely to test ROPES-positive (OR = 0.59, p = 0.004). Because ROPES testing identifies organisms in the mouth of cattle, and the outcome is both associated with presence of the organism in the pen environment and correlated with the prevalence of fecal shedding, we conclude the two-dose vaccine regimen reduces the probability for environmental transmission of E. coli O157:H7 within commercial cattle feeding systems.