Human–livestock contacts and their relationship to transmission of zoonotic pathogens, a systematic review of literature

Klous, Gijs; Huss, Anke; Heederik, Dick J.J.; Coutinho, Roel A.

Since there are so many unknown factors in the knowledge about livestock contact and zoonotic micro-organism transmission, it is very hard to optimise interventions, minimising effects of a future outbreak on public health. However, some suggestions on intervention can be given. For the occupational setting: In case of an animal outbreak, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) use by cullers should be reinforced, especially in case of infectious micro-organisms that can be inhaled [30] . For slaughterhouse workers, PPE appears to be especially relevant for people working on the start of the slaughter line, since they seem to be exposed to the highest levels of zoonotic micro-organisms [21] [22] [23] [24] . Since the protective abilities of PPE have been shown to not always be optimal [30, [44] [45] [46] , vaccination, if available, of cullers and slaughterhouse workers [44, 121] may be considered, as well as usage of prophylactic drugs for cullers during their work [44] . For farmers, PPE can be used when they enter the stables, combined with a standardised general on-farm hygiene protocol [122] . When it comes to protecting the general public, in case of zoonotic outbreaks, there is always a risk of spread of micro-organisms from an infected farm to the direct environment [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] , and farm-emissions are difficult to control [26, 94, 95, 110] . The possible solution to control (infectious-)farm-emissions is complete closure of stables, combined with effective air filtering or washing systems [123] , also manure should be handled with outmost care, since this can contain several microorganisms [41, 43, [80] [81] [82] [83] .