• Project number: F 2356
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Completed Project

Description:

Although operator highly comply the hygienically standards in hatcheries, first investigations indicated high exposures of employees to airborne bacteria at their working places. However, bacteriological exposure situations at these working places in general are of an unknown composition. The focus of this study therefore will be the extensive characterisation of airborne exposure situation in hatcheries at a quantitative and qualitative level depending on the processed poultry species. For this, hatcheries' bioaerosols will be analysed by cultivation based and molecular based methods to investigate the dominating bacteria especially at manual sorting of chicks. Potential harmful bacterial species will be additionally investigated for their potential to resist to clinical relevant antibiotics and will be further characterized to their corresponding clonal lineages. Based on all obtained data the exposure situation will be assessed. If necessary, protective measures are to be derived. Results shall to be announced by scientific and trade specific publications.