Development of standard methods with special reference to Europe.

For a long time, many different microbiological methods were used around the world in order to enumerate or detect contaminants in foods. The development of commercial, but also scientific and technical exchanges between countries has stimulated new developments and a desire to harmonize methods. The example of AFNOR (French Association for Standardization) is first presented.

Dose titration study of enrofloxacin (Baytril) against respiratory colibacillosis in Muscovy ducks.

Four-week-old specific-pathogen-free Muscovy ducks were inoculated with reovirus. One week later, they were inoculated intratracheally with a O78:K80 strain of Escherichia coli. The next day, they were given enrofloxacin at different doses in the drinking water.

Comparison of antigenic and pathogenic properties of Mycoplasma iowae strains and development of a PCR-based detection assay.

The six reference strains of Mycoplasma iowae (I, J, K, N, Q and R) and 12 field strains, most of them isolated from turkeys, were studied with a growth-inhibition test and a dot immunobinding test with rabbit antisera to the different serovars of M iowae, 16S rDNA gene amplification by polymerase chain reaction, and pathogenicity for chicken or turkey embryos. Antigenic tests tended to be strain specific and showed that most field strains were closely related to serovars K or N. The two pairs of primers chosen in 16S rDNA guided the amplification of 332 base pairs (bp) or 892 bp fragments from all the M iowae strains tested.