Colibacillosis has a higher rate of fatality in poultry when the birds are also infected with  Enterococcus.

Colibacillosis is an infection caused by avian pathogenic E. coli, resulting in septicemia, organ failure and death and costing the poultry industry in losses.

Some bacterial pathogens that have a significant and detrimental impact on the industry. Salmonella is the big food safety one, but it seems that colibacillosis takes the cake for the one that has the most direct effect on the health of the birds. It’s gotten a lot of attention, but one thing that’s not received as much attention is the role of other bacterial pathogens with E. coli and cases of co-infection.

More about the study

Over three years, cultured post-mortem samples from birds suspected to have colibacillosis. In many cases, both Enterococcus faecalis (EF) bacteria and APEC, were found in many of the samples, leading to hypothesis that co-infection with both bacteria may increase the mortality rate of the birds compared to infection with a single strain.

Next, created an embryo infection model, where embryos exposed to EF, APEC or both. Co-infection with both APEC and EF resulted in a 95% mortality rate, much higher than infection with either EF (32%) or APEC (59%).

Hope to build on this with further investigation on the synergies between these pathogens in colibacillosis and other infections.

With the increased pressures, discovering that there are these interactions. We focus in medicine quite a bit on individual agents, but these complex interactions are the future.

http://gestyy.com/er1oNN