Observed faecal and systemic E. coli MLST Sequence types categorised by VAG carriage.

(n) = ST observation frequency. All faecal E. coli belonged to newly identified sequence types (ST) excluding ST-352. Interestingly, all ST-352 isolates harboured more than 5 VAGs with the following profiles:1) astA+, irp2+, papC+, iucD+, vat+, cvi+, sitA+ 2) iss+, irp2+, papC+, iucD+, vat+, cvi+, sitA+ 3) iss+, irp2+, papC+, iucD+, vat+, cvi+, sitA+ and they did not group with other E. coli in the online database. Systemic E. coli analysis identified 3 ST–117 and 4 ST- 2999 isolates; however ST-2998 and ST-3000 did not cluster with the other two STs in this category.