Monitoring the use of antibacterial agents in food-producing animals is crucial in order to reduce antimicrobial resistance, selection and dissemination of resistant bacterial strains, and drug residues in the animal food products. The broiler production sector is considered a great consumer of antibacterials and incriminated in the rise of antimicrobial resistance level in zoonotic bacterial pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter. Following recommendations from the OIE and WHO, a survey was conducted about the use and consumption of several antibacterial agents in Moroccan broiler flocks. More than 5 million broilers were randomly surveyed at the prescriber level, that is, via the veterinary clinics involved in their health management. The results showed that 93% of the flocks received at least one antibacterial treatment of minimum 3 days duration. Enrofloxacin, colistin and trimethoprim/sulphonamides were the most used antibacterials followed by oxytetracycline, florfenicol and amoxicillin. Oxytetracycline, enrofloxacin and colistin were overdosed in most of the administration, while amoxicillin and the combination of trimethoprim/sulphonamides were under-dosed. The total amount of antibacterial consumed in the survey was 63.48 mg/kg and the Animal Level of Exposure to Antimicrobials (ALEA) was 94.45%. The reasons for this frequent use were related mainly to the poor quality of broiler production management. Chicks and animal feed provided to producers were of variable quality. Management of rearing stock density was often poor and biosecurity inadequate, and broilers were challenged by a high prevalence of infectious diseases.

Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is an important contagious viral infection of immune system of poultry. This infection possesses a permanent threat to the profitability of poultry industry worldwide. The aim of this work was to modify the Taq Man-MGB real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) in one step involving two fluorogenic Taq Man labeled probe and using this protocol for detection of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) collected from suspected cases distributed in different regions of the country during the period 2013-2016. The intralaboratory validation of modified method was realized for specificity, linearity, repeatability, sensitivity and reproducibility. It allowed reducing the test running time by six folds. This method was applied on 102 pools of bursa of fabricius (BF) samples collected from affected broiler farms suspected to be infected by IBDV. Birds showing macroscopic lesions including muscle petechial hemorrhages, hypertrophy and hemorrhage of BF, were subjected to molecular analysis using modified protocol "Taq Man-MGB rRT-PCR". The validation satisfied all criteria and the assay developed could be a useful tool for a very rapid diagnosis of IBDV and permit to detect and to discriminate in one-step very virulent (vv) from non-vv (classic and variant) IBDV strains. Out of 84 IBDV positive samples, a prevalence of 39% for vv strains and 61% for classical strains was noted. These results indicate that despite the vaccination against IBDV, the vv form of this pathologie continues to cause serious problems for Moroccan broiler chickens. The obtained results indicate the successfully detection of IBDV and differentiated all vvIBDV strains from non-vvIBDV strains; Avian infectious agent RNA viruses tested are negative, demonstrating great specificity of the assay. The results obtained indicate that this method is suitable as a routine laboratory test for the rapid detection and differentiation of IBDV strains in samples of avian origin.