Phage Control of Campylobacters in Poultry Production

Campylobacter jejuni is a major cause of foodborne diarrhoeal disease in the United Kingdom. Poultry in general and chicken in particular, due to their pre-eminence in the market place, act as a reservoir for this pathogen and source of contamination to the human food chain. Transmission within broiler house flocks is such that the whole flock will be infected before slaughter. <P>

This project proposes an intervention strategy through the use of
Campylobacterer-specific bacteriophage isolates as natural agents of
biological control of infected flocks.
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The specific objectives are:
<UL> <LI> To isolate a series of lytic bacteriophages against campylobacters and
establish their host ranges with respect to reference strains.
<LI>To compare and to integrate the bacteriophages of campylobacters isolated
from broiler houses with those used in phage-typing schemes for
campylobacters isolated from human patients suffering gastro-enteritis.
<LI>To investigate the application of Campylobacter-specific bacteriophages as
control measures against the sources of infection in broiler houses.
<LI>To investigate phage-treatment strategies on the carriage and shedding of
campylobacters from infected chickens.
<LI>To evaluate the release of campylobacters in the slaughter process of phage-treated
and control infected broiler chickens.
<LI> To evaluate the distribution and contamination level of campylobacters on
fresh, frozen and processed chicken, and to compare these findings with
phage-treated birds.
<LI>To evaluate scale-up procedures necessary to establish effective phage
treatment strategies for UK broiler houses.
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The long-term aim for the poultry industry must be the elimination of
campylobacters at source to produce microbiologically safe poultry meat.