A continuing problem...

Mycoplasma infections in poultry remain one of the common, major causes of production losses in most countries of the world. Intensification of the industry has facilitated the spread of the disease laterally and its pyramidal structure of breeders to producers makes vertical transmission easy. Eradication of the mycoplasmas from breeding flocks has proven successful in some countries but breakdowns do occur.
 

The major mycoplasma infections in poultry are:

• Chickens
  - Mycoplasma gallisepticum
  - M. synoviae
• Turkeys
  - M. gallisepticum
  - M. synoviae
  - M. meleagridis
  - M. iowae
  

M. gallisepticum is the most serious infection in chickens, the cause of chronic respiratory disease (CRD) and can have a major damaging effect on poultry production, especially in the acute phase, but also in a chronic infection in layers.
 

Vaccines both killed and live have been used but will not totally eliminate the infection and may confuse serology tests, especially in eradication programmes.
 

Antimicrobials have been used in a variety of programmes for prevention and treatment. Some have developed resistance over many years of use, such as the macrolides and tetracyclines, but Tiamutin is unrelated to these antimicrobials and is still highly active against their resistant strains. It also develops resistance to mycoplasmas very slowly, in comparison with other antibiotics and therefore is becoming the product of choice for resistant-mycoplasma control.
 

Tiamutin – targeting mycoplasma