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Drug Enrichment of Commercial Poultry Feeds and Human Health in the Tropical Developing Countries

Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica volume 30, pages 133–139 (1989)Cite this article

Abstract

Eighty per cent of Enterobacteriaceae isolates from battery poultry exhibited drug resistance in a survey among university and commercial poultry flocks. These birds, being a source of human food, may serve as an important reservoir for human pathogenic drug-resistant enteric organisms. Feeds used on University and Commercial poultry farms were found to be inhibitory to standard test organisms - Oxford strain of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli K 12 J5 NA+ Lac-. Feed additives, which purportedly were mineral and vitamin supplements, were found to be highly laden with antibacterials, a quantitative estimation of which revealed that one of them, termed A & D Crumbles contained as much as 3000 (three thousand) µg of antibiotic per g, while another feed additive known as ADVIT contained 130 µg of antibiotic per g of the feed supplement. These are routinely added to poultry feeds, a practice which may easily lead to development of drug resistance among enteric pathogens that may, in turn, reach humans and complicate therapy of human bacterial infections. This may be of a considerable public health significance.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to express my gratitude to Professor David G. Montefiore, Deputy Provost, College of Medicine, for providing me laboratory facilities in the Department of Medical Microbiology, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. I am grateful to Dr. Holger Pedersen and Laboratory Technologist Anne-Marie Cornelius Moeller both of the Kemikaliekontrollen, National Agency for Environmental Protection, Copenhagen, Denmark, for their assistance on the quantitative assays and screening of test organisms.

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  1. Gastro-Enterology Division, Department of Medicine, Rigshospitalet (National University Hospital), Telemarksgade 9, DK-2300, Sundby, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Adé A. Ojeniyi

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  1. Adé A. Ojeniyi
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Ojeniyi, A.A. Drug Enrichment of Commercial Poultry Feeds and Human Health in the Tropical Developing Countries. Acta Vet Scand 30, 133–139 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03548049

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Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica

ISSN: 1751-0147