The impact of anticoccidial drug resistance on poultry production - a review

Abstract

The use of drugs to combat or control infectious organisms is one of the greatest advancements that scientific knowledge has brought to mankind. However, the continued use of a particular drug to control infection is fraught with a lot of dangers, one of which is drug resistance by the infectious organisms to this drug. The implication of this is that the organism is no longer responsive to this drug and hence, there is high morbidity, motality and in fact, there is high economic loss in livestock industry as a result of drug resistance. This review, using coccidiosis and anticoccidial drug resistance highlighted the economic impact of drug resistance on livestock industry but also suggested ways of preventing or minimizing drug resistance on the farm. This way, economic loss will be minimized and more protein from animal origin will be made available to the Nigerian populace.

Keywords: drug resistance, coccidiosis, anticoccidial, shuttling

Moor Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 5(2) 2004: 188-192