Using the antibiotic bacitracin in poultry poses virtually no risk of an untreatable human infection from antimicrobial-resistant bacteria originating from chicken and turkey products, reports Randall Singer, DVM, PhD, University of Minnesota.
This assessment comes more than 50 years after bacitracin was first approved for US animal feed.
Today, bacitracin is widely used in broiler feed to aid in the prevention and control of necrotic enteritis in chickens caused or complicated by Clostridium spp. and is used as an aid in the control of transmissible enteritis in growing turkeys.
A water-soluble version is approved for controlling necrotic enteritis in broiler and replacement chickens, as well as transmissible enteritis in growing turkeys.
“The World Health Organization list puts bacitracin as medically important because at least one country in the world requires a bacitracin prescription for use, even topically, in humans,” Singer said. Read more