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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