engleski

Autogenous bacterial vaccines in poultry production- friend or foe

Poultry production has become one of the main ways of animal protein production in the world, but poultry suffers from various infectious agents that could seriously devastate it. Viral poultry pathogens are usually successfully controlled by commercial vaccines, while the bacterial ones are generally controlled by good management, biosecurity measures and, if needed, therapy. Since bacterial pathogens have developed antimicrobial resistance, and, in parallel, the evolution of virulence factors has taken place, the problems have become worse. Some of the bacterial species like Escherichia coli, Gallibacterium anatis etc. have shown a capability to cause significant losses in all production systems. Since universal vaccines for the mentioned pathogens are usually lacking, autogenous vaccines have shown a promising potential. In the last five years, several farms had significant problems caused by bacterial diseases. Different tissue swabs were taken and a microbiological examination was done. After isolation, the species were additionally identified by using MALDI-TOF and all of the samples were stored for later analyses. Antimicrobial resistance was tested and some isolates, such as E. coli, were molecularly typed. The predominant species and strains isolated from target organs in clinical cases were used for the production of an autogenous vaccine for vaccination of the next layer or breeder pullet flocks. The results showed that the predominant bacterial pathogen in clinical cases was E. coli, with a high prevalence of G. anatis, Salmonella Gallinarum and Hafnia alvei on some farms, which were usually resistant to the majority of antimicrobials. After the introduction of an autogenous vaccine and the improvement of management on farms, mortality on a broiler breeder farm was reduced from over 20% to less than 10%. In addition, in some drastic cases of infection with both E. coli and G. anatis found in 1 layer flock, the vaccine alone reduced the mortality from 31% to 8.8% up to 60 weeks of age. The mentioned results indicate a promising future for autogenous vaccines.

autogenous vaccine, poultry, Escherichia coli, Gallibacterium anatis, Salmonella Gallinarum

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