Industrial poultry farming has led to a more than 100-fold increase in the spread of a bacteria causing food poisoning, scientists have discovered.

Intensive nature of modern chicken farming creates ideal conditions for campylobacter, allowing bacteria to evolve Industrial chicken farming is accelerating the spread of the world’s most common bacterial cause of diarrhoea, scientists have found. The study found a dramatic increase in the exchange of campylobacter strains between wild birds and chickens as farming has intensified, creating the ideal conditions for the bacteria to mix, spread and acquire new traits. There has also been a rise in antimicrobial resistance traits in circulating strains, raising concerns that serious illness in people will be more difficult to treat. Continue reading...

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Researchers from the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI) have identified a new class of molecule that could help protect ‘last-resort’ antibiotics from bacterial resistance, and reduce the amount of antibiotics needed to treat infections by up to 32 times.