New ideas, trends, products and technologies
Red poultry mites may hold key to reducing Salmonella in poultry and people
Bacteria that live inside red poultry mites
might provide a new and effective way to
prevent the spread of salmonella and other
pathogens in chickens, says Dr. Olivier
Sparagano of Newcastle University,
United Kingdom.
Red poultry mites cause huge losses in
layers, resulting in blood-spotted eggs
that are unfit to sell. They can also cause
anemia in chickens that leads to illness
and a susceptibility to infections such as
salmonella, which can be transmitted to
people via eggs or broiler meat.
A new way of fighting the poultry mites is
needed in part due to growing resistance
to acaricides, Sparagano notes.
"If somehow we could develop a method
to destabilize the symbiotic bacteria that
we have discovered living inside the mites,
therefore removing [their] beneficial effect,
we could develop a new control method for
the chicken red mite," Sparagano proposed
in a talk given at the 2007 annual meeting of
the Society for General Microbiology held
last September in Edinburgh, UK.
There would be several other benefits
besides a possible reduction in infections
such as salmonella if Sparango and his
colleagues are successful. The use of
acaricide chemicals currently used to
control the mites could be reduced; that
in turn would reduce concerns about
acaricide residues in eggs, which have
been found, and there would be a reduction
in cases of skin rashes and dermatitis in
poultry workers, according to information
from the Society for General Microbiology.
Spring 2008
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