Klebsiella spp. in the pathology of poultry and their role in epidemiology of human foodborne diseases

Abstract

One of the important problems, increasing successively, in intensive poultry production are bacterial infections, and the major reason of this inconvenient situation is increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. In most cases infections are caused by bacteria belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae, especially Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. Additionally, bacteria Klebsiella spp. are isolated from many pathological conditions of poultry. To date these bacteria were isolated from dead embryos, yolk sac infections, pathological conditions associated with ascites, cellulitis, diseases with respiratory symptoms and from skin swabs of poultry carcasses. Klebsiella spp. are considered to be microbes of low pathogenicity, but in the case of birds’ immunosuppression they can intensify the course of primary infections. Moreover, an alarming fact is the very wide antimicrobial resistance of strains of these bacteria, and Klebsiella spp. is the frequent cause of critical infections in humans. The presence of these bacteria in poultry, and therefore the possibility of contamination of poultry carcasses, especially if processed without correct heat treatment, may serve as a source of infections for humans, which has been described in the past in studies with the use of phylogenetic analysis.