Colibacillosis, a disease caused by Escherichia coli in broiler chickens has serious implications on food safety, security, and economic sustainability. Antibiotics are required for treating the disease, while vaccination and biosecurity are used for its prevention. This systematic review and meta-analysis, conducted under the COST Action CA18217—European Network for Optimization of Veterinary Antimicrobial Treatment (ENOVAT), aimed to assess the efficacy of E. coli vaccination in broiler production and provide evidence-based recommendations. A comprehensive search of bibliographic databases, including, PubMed, CAB Abstracts, Web of Science and Agricola, yielded 2,722 articles. Following a defined protocol, 39 studies were selected for data extraction. Most of the studies were experimental infection trials, with only three field studies identified, underscoring the need for more field-based research. The selected studies reported various types of vaccines, including killed (n = 5), subunit (n = 8), outer membrane vesicles/protein-based (n = 4), live/live-attenuated (n = 16), and CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) (n = 6) vaccines. The risk of bias assessment revealed that a significant proportion of studies reporting mortality (92.3%) or feed conversion ratio (94.8%) as outcomes, had “unclear” regarding bias. The meta-analysis, focused on live-attenuated and CpG ODN vaccines, demonstrated a significant trend favoring both vaccination types in reducing mortality. However, the review also highlighted the challenges in reproducing colibacillosis in experimental setups, due to considerable variation in challenge models involving different routes of infection, predisposing factors, and challenge doses. This highlights the need for standardizing the challenge model to facilitate comparisons between studies and ensure consistent evaluation of vaccine candidates. While progress has been made in the development of E. coli vaccines for broilers, further research is needed to address concerns such as limited heterologous protection, practicability for application, evaluation of efficacy in field conditions and adoption of novel approaches.

Biosecurity implementation in poultry production is essential for maintaining flock health and preventing diseases. Regulatory frameworks play a key role in standardising biosecurity practices and ensuring compliance among stakeholders. However, there is limited information on how biosecurity measures (BMs) are legally enforced across different European countries. This study aimed to identify which BMs are mandated by legislation and/or other regulatory frameworks in 22 EU and non-EU countries for intensive poultry production. Using a participatory approach involving poultry experts from these 22 countries, data collection and validation were conducted through a questionnaire covering eleven biosecurity categories and comprising 56 BMs. The survey was carried out between December 2022 and December 2023. The number of BMs mandated by legislation for all poultry species varied considerably across countries. Turkey (52), Ukraine (46), and Slovakia (38) had the highest numbers, whereas Denmark, Sweden, and Finland had none. The most regulated BMs included rodent control programs, cleaning and disinfection after each production cycle, and physical or natural farm barriers. Conversely, the least regulated BMs included farm-exclusive personnel and external silo loading, with no regulations concerning keeping other farm animals, poultry species, or pets. Broiler and layer farming were subjected to more compulsory BMs than other poultry species. Additionally, twelve countries reported BMs under other regulatory frameworks, with Serbia (55), Turkey (53), and Poland (49) having the highest numbers, while Sweden (27), Finland (26), and Norway (25) had the lowest. The most regulated BMs included designated clothing and footwear, hygiene locks, and clean house surroundings. The least regulated BMs were related to silo loading, manure collection, and a parking area outside the farm. There was considerable variation in the number and type of BMs mandated by legislation across countries, likely influenced by each country's perceived disease risk. These findings highlight the importance of establishing a harmonized biosecurity framework at the European level to address regulatory heterogeneity and enhance disease prevention in poultry production.

In Africa, livestock production plays a crucial role for sustainable food security and economic growth. However, the development of this sector has been delayed by livestock diseases, one of the main constraints, which can cause important production and economic losses. To overcome these constraints, farmers extensively use antimicrobials, which in turn can lead to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), one of the main threats to global health and food security. Biosecurity has been identified as a key strategy to reduce livestock diseases. Therefore, the current systematic review and meta‐analysis, conducted according to the Cochrane guideline, aimed at determining the efficacy of biosecurity in preventing and controlling infectious diseases in livestock farms in Africa. Of the 1408 records retrieved from five different databases, only 16 met the inclusion criteria. These studies were conducted in Egypt (31.2%), Nigeria (31.2%), Uganda (18.8%), Ethiopia (12.5%) and Tunisia (6.3%) and concerned poultry (62.4%), pigs (18.8%) and cattle (18.8%). Investigations focused mainly on avian influenza (AI) (15.0%) and coccidiosis (10.0%) in poultry and African swine fever (ASF) (10.0%) in pigs. In poultry farms, the results of the pairwise meta‐analysis showed that biosecurity measures related to visitors and farmworkers could be effective at reducing the risk of introduction and spread of AI viruses (odds ratio [OR] = 0.48; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.28–0.82). Moreover, inadequate biosecurity seemed to be a factor promoting coccidiosis (OR = 4.20; 95% CI 2.4–7.4) and AI (OR = 1.74; 95% CI 1.23–2.48). Prevention of ASF was significantly associated with the application of biosecurity measures related to animals’ transport, removal of carcasses and manure (OR = 0.33; 95% CI 0.12–0.88). Despite their importance, these findings cannot be translated to the entire African continent, since no studies were available for more than 90% of its countries. More research should be carried out to fill in the gaps identified by this review.

This study evaluates the quality of the veterinary drugs most frequently used in the Far North Region of Cameroon and describes how pastoralists use them to treat their cattle herds. High-performance liquid chromatography was used to identify and quantify the active ingredients in the drugs (penicillin G, levamisole, oxytetracycline, diminazene diaceturate, vitamin A, and vitamin E acetate) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry to determine if organic chemical contaminants were present. The results showed that 69% of surveyed pastoralists used veterinary medicines to treat common illnesses. In addition, the most commonly used medications (procaine penicillin G and oxytetracycline) were used in a manner inconsistent with the recommended dosage, frequency, duration, and withdrawal period by 98% of the pastoralists. However, contrary to previous studies, the quality of the medications used by pastoralists was generally good. The poor compliance with recommended treatment protocols was much more prevalent than use of poor quality medications and presents a potential for treatment failure, drug resistance of animal pathogens, and harmful drug residues in the human food supply, all of which have potentially negative consequences for animal and human health.

This systematic review aimed at investigating the role that biosecurity can have in preventing or controlling colibacillosis in broiler production. Primary studies with natural or experimental exposure to avian pathogenic Escherichia coli, evaluating any biosecurity measure to prevent or control colibacillosis in broiler chickens with at least one of the following outcomes: feed conversion ratio (FCR), condemnations at slaughter, and mortality due to colibacillosis, were included. A systematic search was carried out in 4 databases according to the Cochrane handbook and reported following the PRISMA 2020 directions. Studies (n = 3,886) were screened in a 2-phase process and data matching the inclusion criteria were extracted. Risk of bias assessment was performed. Four studies reporting biosecurity measures to prevent or control colibacillosis in broiler production were included. In all studies, only disinfection during either the pre-hatching period (n = 3) or the post-hatching period (n = 1) was evaluated as biosecurity measure in broiler production, as well as its effect on FCR (n = 2) and mortality (n = 4) due to colibacillosis. No studies with effects on condemnations at slaughter were found. Due to the heterogeneity of studies in regard to interventions and outcomes, meta-analysis was not carried out. The limited findings of this systematic review do not provide a comprehensive evidence to statistically evaluate the efficacy of biosecurity to prevent or control colibacillosis in broiler production. The scarcity of evidence found suggests that further and deeper investigations on the topic are needed, considering the variety of interventions related to biosecurity.

The rapid population growth in Africa is associated with an increasing demand for livestock products which in turn can lead to antimicrobial use. Antimicrobial usage in animals contributes to the emergence and selection of resistant bacteria which constitutes a serious public health threat. This study aims to review and summarize the available information on highest priority critically important antimicrobials (HPCIAs) resistance in livestock production in Africa. This work will help to inform future policies for controlling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the food production chain. A scoping review was conducted according to the Cochrane handbook and following PRISMA 2020 guidelines for reporting. Primary research studies published after 1999 and reporting resistance of Escherichia coli, Enterococcus spp, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella spp, and Campylobacter spp to HPCIAs in poultry, cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep in Africa were searched in four databases. A total of 312 articles were included in the review. The majority of the studies (40.7) were conducted in North African countries. More than 49.0% of included studies involved poultry and 26.2% cattle. Cephalosporins and quinolones were the most studied antimicrobial classes. Of the bacteria investigated in the current review, E. coli (41.7%) and Salmonella spp (24.9%) represented the most commonly studied. High levels of resistance against erythromycin in E. coli were found in poultry (MR 96.1%, IQR 83.3-100.0%), cattle (MR 85.7%, IQR 69.2-100.0%), and pigs (MR 94.0%, IQR 86.2-94.0%). In sheep, a high level of resistance was observed in E. coli against nalidixic acid (MR 87.5%, IQR 81.3-93.8%). In goats, the low level of sensibility was noted in S. aureus against streptomycin (MR 86.8%, IQR 19.4-99.0%). The study provides valuable information on HPCIAs resistance in livestock production in Africa and highlights the need for further research and policies to address the public health risk of AMR. This will likely require an investment in diagnostic infrastructure across the continent. Awareness on the harmful impact of AMR in African countries is a requirement to produce more effective and sustainable measures to curb AMR.