Fungal contamination: comparation between Portuguese poultries and swines

• Author(s): Viegas, Carla ; Sabino, Raquel ; Veríssimo, Cristina
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/2505
• Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa
• Subject(s): Environmental health; Occupational health; Fungal contamination; Poultry; Swinery; Portugal
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

Animal confinement tends to increase the overall microbial load in the production environment caused by high amounts of feed and organic residuals (manure and wastewater) present in those environments. The number of animais and the handling and management required to work in these settings also contribute to enhance that microbial ioad. Animal housing typically exposes workers to substantial concentrations of bioaerosols, such as fungi and their metabolites. Therefore, agricultural workers, and especially pig and poultry farmers, are at increased risk of occupational respiratory diseases. Exposure to bioaerosols in poultries and swines may vary depending upon the stage of the animals' growth, density, manure management procedures, litter type and used floor coverage, among others. Gathering temporal information about the quantity and the composition of fungal load is necessary to better understand the relationship between these factors and adverse health symptoms of workers. This study aimed to characterize and compare fungal contamination between these two different settings.