The Use of Bacteriophages in the Poultry Industry

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Poultry production is one of the worldwide sectors which utilizes many antibiotics. Reducing antibiotic use is one of the biggest challenges to the poultry industry globally. Due to the increasing risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the European Union has in 2006 imposed a ban on the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in food-producing animals, but they are still used in other parts of the world. Following the ban, many countries reported a negative impact on animals’ well-being, the re-emergence of old infectious diseases in poultry, and an increase in the usage of antibiotics in poultry for therapeutic purposes. Nowadays, foodborne bacterial pathogens have been considered as the leading bacterial causes of human diseases. In the era of the increasing emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria and a lack of new effective antibiotics, it is natural that much scientific effort has been put into developing and implementing new technologies to combat bacteria. In this context, bacteriophages (phages) have been proposed as an alternative strategy to antibiotics for poultry, and thus for food safety and public health. ABSTRACT: The emergence of multidrug-resistant infections and antibiotic failures have raised concerns over human and veterinary medicine worldwide. Poultry production has had to confront the problems of an alarming increase in bacterial resistance, including zoonotic pathogens. According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis have been the most frequently reported human foodborne diseases linked to poultry. This situation has strongly stimulated a renewal of scientists’ interest in bacteriophages (phages) since the beginning of the 21st century. Bacteriophages are the viruses of bacteria. They are abundant in nature, and accompany bacteria in each environment they colonize, including human microbiota. In this review, we focused on the use of bacteriophages as therapeutic agents to treat infections and reduce counts of pathogenic bacteria in poultry, as biocontrol agents to eliminate foodborne pathogens on/in food, and also as disinfectants to reduce contamination on food-contact surfaces or poultry carcasses in industrial conditions. Most of the phage-based products are targeted against the main foodborne pathogens, such as Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium perfringens. Phages are currently addressed at all stages of the poultry production "from farm to fork", however, their implementation into live birds and food products still provokes discussions especially in the context of the current legal framework, limitations, as well as public health and safety.