This experiment was conducted to examine the effect of neem (Azadirachta indica) as an antibiotic growth promoter substitute on growth performance, carcass traits, and humoral immune responses in broiler chickens. A total of 192 one-d-old mixed sex broiler chicks (Ross 308) were weighted and randomly allocated to four treatment groups, each with 4 replicate pens of 12 chicks. The dietary treatments consisted of the basal diet (control), control+4.5 mg flavophospholipol/kg, or control+7 or 12 g neem fruit powder/kg.

Suspected or complicated intra-abdominal infections are common in young infants and lead to significant morbidity and mortality. Meropenem is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent with excellent activity against pathogens associated with intra-abdominal infections in this population. The purpose of this study was to determine the pharmacokinetics (PK) of meropenem in young infants as a basis for optimizing dosing and minimizing adverse events.

Original Source

Antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria are increasingly prevalent in hospitals and the community. New antibiotics are needed to combat these bacterial pathogens, but progress in developing them has been slow. Historically, most antibiotics have come from a small set of molecular scaffolds whose functional lifetimes have been extended by generations of synthetic tailoring. The emergence of multidrug resistance among the latest generation of pathogens suggests that the discovery of new scaffolds should be a priority.

Intrinsic antibiotic resistance has been a fact of bacterium life since long before humans discovered the use of antibiotic drugs. However, the introduction of pharmaceutical antibiotics in the 1940s and explosion in use ever since dramatically accelerated the spread of antibiotic-resistance genes.

Since in-feed antibiotics (IFAs) are being taken out of broiler diets around the world, beginning in Sweden in the year 1986, the search for alternatives to replace IFAs has gained increasing interest in animal nutrition. Gut microflora appears to be the target for IFAs and alternatives to exert health benefits and some growth-promoting effects. In this review the effect of six kinds of alternatives to IFAs on gut microflora is discussed and their working mechanisms and growth-promoting effects are reviewed.

The accelerated growth of finfish aquaculture has resulted in a series of developments detrimental to the environment and human health. The latter is illustrated by the widespread and unrestricted use of prophylactic antibiotics in this industry, especially in developing countries, to forestall bacterial infections resulting from sanitary shortcomings in fish rearing.

Antimicrobial compounds are commonly included in poultry diets for promoting of growth and control of diseases. The European Union banned feed grade antibiotic growth promoters, due to, not only cross-resistance, but also to the risk of possible drugs multiple resistances in human pathogenic bacteria. Only two such drug-related compounds are planned to remain in use (Gill, 1999; Bach Knudsen, 2001; Schwarz et al., 2001; Shane, 2001). Feeds containing no chemical additives are increasingly used in poultry nutrition.

An in vivo experiment was conducted to study the potential prebiotic effects of mushroom and herb polysaccharide extracts, Lentinus edodes extract (LenE), Tremella fuciformis extract, and Astragalus membranaceus Radix extract, on chicken growth and the cecal microbial ecosystem, as compared with the antibiotic Apramycin (APR). This investigation was carried out in terms of a dose-response study. The chickens were naturally infected with avian Mycoplasma gallisepticum prior to the experiment.