ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE September 2023 29 About Madalina Diaconu Madalina Diaconu has more than a decade of experience in farm management and experimental trials, product development and project management (Group Roullier – Centre Mondial d’Innovation) and gut health management (EW Nutrition). She studied Animal Breeding and Communication Sciences, and has a Master’s in Animal breeding and aquaculture. As Global Product Manager in EW Nutrition, she focuses on poultry gut health in challenging situations, especially coccidiosis management. She is also working on developments related to organic acids for several animal species. About Twan van Gerwe Twan van Gerwe graduated as veterinarian from Utrecht University in 2000. After working as poultry field vet, he rejoined Utrecht University to start a PhD project (Campylobacter in broilers) and taught poultry health. From 2009 until 2017, he worked in various R&D positions within multinational premix/feed companies. He joined EW Nutrition GmbH in 2017 and currently acts as Global Technical Director. In this role, he leads a team of species experts that support the regional teams and directly interact with customers around the globe. In a recent review paper (El-Shall et al., 2022), natural herbal products and their extracts have been described to effectively reduce oocyst output by inhibiting Eimeria species' invasion, replication, and development in chicken gut tissues. Phenolic compounds in herbal extracts cause coccidia cell death and lower oocyst counts. Additionally, herbal additives offer benefits such as reducing intestinal lipid peroxidation, facilitating epithelial repair, and decreasing Eimeria-induced intestinal permeability. Various phytochemical remedies are shown in this simplified adaptation of a table from El-Shall et al. (2022), indicating the effects exerted on poultry in connection to coccidia infection. CONSUMERS VOTE FOR NATURAL – PHYTOCHEMICALS ARE THE SOLUTION Due to still rising antimicrobial resistance, consumers push for meat production without antimicrobial usage. Phytomolecules, as a natural solution, create opportunities to make poultry production more sustainable by reducing dependency on harmful drugs. With their advent, there is hope that antibiotic resistance can be held in check without affecting the profitability of poultry farming. "Instead of using ionophores, coccidiosis is controlled with a veterinary-led combination of live vaccines, synthetic compounds, phytomolecules, and farm management. This approach can be successful, as demonstrated by the fact that over 50% of broiler meat production in the US is NAE. Another example is Australia, where the two leading retail store chains also exclude chemical coccidiostats from broiler production. In certain European countries, e.g., Norway, the focus is increasingly on banning ionophores."
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