A Veterinary Decision Support System by Rapid Bacterial Infection Detection (RAID)

ended

One of the most important challenges of humanity is to supply healthy food for the growing population. In order to supply enough meat intensive animal growing is carried out world-wide and will expectedly increase. These technologies, however, involve several risks, for example broiler chickens produced for their meat in closed rearing houses, often suffer bacterial infections, which is the major cause of their high mortality. In some countries (such as USA, China and Brazil), these animals are fed with antibiotic containing feedstuff for prevention. However, in the European Union, from 2013, antibiotics can only be added to sick animals after diagnosis by a veterinarian. The incontrovertible proof of bacterial infection may take 24 to 48 hours by techniques applied today. The aim of our project is to commercialize a Veterinary Decision Support System (RAID) which is able to detect bacterial infection within 3 hours at affordable cost.