How susceptible are the disease-causing agents to various disinfectants?
Disinfectants are effective against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Disinfectants were not designed to be effective against parasites. In general, the descending order of resistance of disease agents is: • spores (i.e., clostrial diseases like botulism) and acid-fast bacteria (i.e., mycobacteria like Mycobacterium avium [avian tuberculosis]) • gram-negative bacteria (i.e., Pseudomonas, E. coli, Salmonella) • fungi (i.e., Candida [crop mycosis] and Aspergillus [aspergillosis]) • non-enveloped viruses (i.e., enteroviruses and adenoviruses) • gram-positive bacteria (i.e., Staphylococcus aureus) • lipid enveloped viruses (i.e., avian influenza virus). Thus, spore-forming bacteria are harder to destroy by disinfectants than viruses. Table 1 illustrates the effectiveness of the different disinfectant groups against the various classes of avian pathogens. Avian parasites (i.e., lice, mites, and endoparasites) are best treated using insecticides or by means of parasiticides. However, it has been
