Campylobacter contamination of raw meat and poultry at retail sale: Identification of multiple types and comparison with isolates from human infection

Campylobacter species are the major cause of acute bacterial enteritis repo rted in the United Kingdom, nonetheless many aspects of campylobacteriosis epidemiology remain poorly understood. The aim of this study was to determi ne the prevalence of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli in fresh b ovine, ovine, and porcine liver and chicken portions from retail outlets an d compare strain subtype distributions with those associated with cases of human campylobacteriosis occurring within the same period and study area. M eat samples were examined by both enrichment culture and direct plating, an d Campylobacter isolates were subjected to the same test procedures (identi fication, serotyping, phagetyping, resistotyping) applied to the clinical s trains. Campylobacter species were isolated from 73.2% of 489 samples exami ned. Chicken exhibited the highest contamination rate (83.3%), followed by lamb (72.9%), pig (71.7%), and ox (54.2%) liver. C. jejuni predominated in chicken (77.3%), lamb (75.0%), and ox (49.0%) liver, and C. coil predominat ed in pigs' liver (42.4%). Campylobacter fetus was identified in 12.5% of o x liver samples and also in pig and lamb. Of the human isolates, 89.3% were C. jejuni and 10.7% C. coli. The greatest variation in C. jeuni subtypes w as observed among the chicken isolates (57 sero/phage-types), followed by h uman (48 types) and lamb (30 types). A significant proportion of the chicke n and lamb isolates shared identical subtypes with the human strains, indic ative of their role as potential sources of infection. Almost 30% of sample s yielded multiple strains of Campylobacter, a finding that reinforces the epidemiological importance of selecting and testing more than one presumpti ve isolate per sample.