Microbial exposure and respiratory dysfunction in poultry hatchery workers

Today's modern animal confinement with high stocking density of a single species has resulted in new workplaces that are rarely characterised in regard to microbial exposure. In this study we determine the personal microbial exposure by long term monitoring in a duck hatchery. Four hatchery workers were accompanied for four weeks and on every working day personal bioaerosol sampling and lung function tests were performed. Quantitative and qualitative molecular methods were used for analysing bioaerosol samples. Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) analyses showed a unique microbial exposure on eclosion days. By 16S rRNA gene sequence cloning analysis we detected Staphylococcus, Acinetobacter and Enterococcus as predominant bacterial genera. Ducklings' down was identified as a medium for bacterial contamination. Furthermore on eclosion days the four workers showed a decline in lung function over their working shift causing an average FEV1 decrease.