Nowadays, there is an increasing concern for the public health about the consequences from the long and increased use of antibiotics in livestock production. The use of antibiotics in animal feed as growth promoters has been completely banned by the European Union since 2006, based on their possible negative effects on human and animal health. The removal of growth promoters has led to animal performance problems and a rise in the incidence of certain animal diseases. Thus, there is an urgent need to find alternatives to antibiotics, especially in EU. Due to the modern consumers' concern about the potential development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria as well as at the same time the need to prevent economic losses of the farmers, alternatives to antibiotics has been developed to prevent the health problems and to improve the growth performance in farm animals. Owing to the full ban of antibiotic use in EU there is an urgent need to find alternatives to in-feed antibiotics. New strategies and commercial products must be developed to improve animal health and performance, based on their safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness. The aim of this study is to summarize the beneficial effects of currently used alternatives to in-feed antibiotics, i.e. probiotics, prebiotics, organic acids, phytogenic compounds and zeolites on health and growth performance in farm animals (swine, poultry and ruminants).

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Infectious bronchitis (IB), caused by infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), account for severe economic losses in the poultry industry. The continuous emergence of a multitude of IBV variants poses many challenges for its diagnosis and control, and live attenuated vaccines, despite their routine use, still plays a significant role in driving IBV evolution, further complicating the epidemiological scenario. Unfortunately, the impact of different vaccination strategies on IB control, epidemiology, and diagnosis has rarely been investigated.This work presents the results of a large-scale diagnostic survey performed in Poland to study IBV molecular epidemiology and how vaccination may affect the viral circulation in the field. To this purpose, 589 samples were collected between May 2017 and January 2019, tested by reverse transcription-PCR for IBV and sequenced. Vaccine and field strains were discriminated based on genetic and anamnestic information.The most commonly detected lineages were 793B (79%) and variant 2 (17.4%), with sporadic detections of QX, Mass, and D274-like strains. Most of the detected strains had a vaccine origin: 46.3% matched one of the applied vaccines, while 36.5% were genetically related to vaccines not implemented in the respective protocol. Besides their practical value for the proper planning of vaccination protocols in Poland, these results suggest that only a fraction (17.2%) of the circulating strains are field ones, imposing a careful assessment of the actual IBV field menaces. Moreover, phenomena like vaccine spreading and persistence seem to occur commonly, stressing the need to further study the epidemiological consequences of the extensive use of live vaccines.

Campylobacter is well recognized as the leading cause of bacterial foodborne diarrheal disease worldwide. The infection may be subclinical or cause disease of variable severity. The eating and handling of improperly cooked or raw broiler meat has been shown to be one of the most important sources of human campylobacteriosis. Birds carrying Campylobacter are asymptomatic colonizers without any clinical signs. Broilers are considered Campylobacter free after hatching and become colonized by exposure to viable bacteria from the environment. Several risk factors can result in the introduction of Campylobacter into the flocks making it difficult to keep chicken flocks free of Campylobacter throughout the rearing period. Lack of biosecurity measures, season, age, partial depopulation practices, flock size, type of production system, presence of other animals on farm, water quality, presence of rodents and mechanical transmission via insects are considered to be some of the risk factors associated with horizontal transmission. The control of Campylobacter in poultry seems crucial for the reduction of human campylobacteriosis cases. In Greece, there has been a dearth of information on prevalence and risk factors of Campylobacter in broiler flocks. Therefore, it is essential to initially investigate the prevalence of Campylobacter infection on farms and in poultry carcasses and subsequently the risk factors at all production stages of broiler meat and plan intervention studies to help reducing the disease in humans. This paper review the most recent data reported worldwide on Campylobacter infection in humans and poultry in order to provide an overview of trends, risks, possible causes and mechanisms of transmission routes.

Campylobacter is well recognized as the leading cause of bacterial foodborne diarrheal disease worldwide; while, poultry has been identified as a significant cause of campylobacter infection in humans. The C. jejuni has been found to be the predominant species isolated from poultry samples and, yet, responsible for the majority of human campylobacteriosis. Campylobacter spp. are small, oxidase positive, microaerophilic, curved gram-negative rods exhibiting corkscrew motility and colonize the intestinal tract of most mammalian and avian species. From its very first description in late 19th century by Theodor Escherich until nowadays, a lot of research has been carried out providing a wealth of information regarding its microbiological properties. Since novel technologies constantly emerge, increasingly advanced methods for detection, identification and typing of Campylobacter spp. are becoming available. The aim of this article is to review the recent bibliography on Campylobacter focusing, especially, on its survival and growth characteristics, the laboratory methods used for its detection and isolation from clinical, animal, environmental, and food samples, the reported methods applied for its speciation, as well as the typing systems developed for subtyping of Campylobacter.

The prevention of avian colibacillosis has historically been investigated through vaccination, with variable outcomes. Commercial live (attenuated) and inactivated vaccines are reported to have limited efficacy in the context of heterologous challenge. Autogenous vaccination, using field isolates, is widely used, but scarcely documented. Different vaccination programs, including a live commercial vaccine and/or an inactivated autogenous vaccine, were compared for three different avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) strain (serotypes O78, O18 and O111) challenges. On the pullet farm, four groups of conventional pullets received different vaccination protocols. Group A was kept unvaccinated (control group). Group B was vaccinated three times with a live commercial O78 E. coli vaccine (at one day old, 59 and 110 days of age). Group C was immunized twice (at 79 and 110 days) with a three-valence autogenous vaccine (O78, O18 and O111). Group D was vaccinated first with the commercial vaccine (at one day old and 59 days), then with the autogenous vaccine (110 days). Birds were transferred to the experimental facility at 121 days of age and were challenged 10 days later. In each group, 20 birds were challenged with one of the three APEC strains (O78, O18, O111); in total, 80 birds were challenged by the same strains (20 per group). The recorded outcomes were: mortality rate, macroscopic lesion score in target organs and the bacterial recovery of the challenge strain from bone marrow and pooled organs. When challenged with O78 or O111 strains, birds from groups C and D proved to be significantly better protected, in terms of lesion scoring and bacteriological isolation, than those of groups A and B. With the O18 challenge, only birds of group D presented a statistically significant reduction of their lesion score. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report on the efficacy of an immunization program in poultry that combines commercial and autogenous vaccines.