A quantitative risk assessment for the occurrence of campylobacter in chickens at the point of slaughter

A quantitative risk assessment model investigating the risk of human infect ion with campylobacter from the consumption of chicken meat/products is cur rently being formulated. Here such an approach is used to evaluate the prob ability that a random bird, selected at slaughter from Great Britain's nati onal poultry flock, will be campylobacter-positive. This is determined from the probability that a flock chosen at random contains at least one coloni zed bird and the within-flock prevalence of such a flock at slaughter. The model indicates that the probability bird chosen at random being campylobac ter-positive at slaughter is 0.53. This probability value has associated un certainty, the 5th percentile being 0.51 and the 95th percentile 0.55. The model predicts that delaying the age at first exposure to campylobacter can have a significant impact on reducing the probability of a bird being camp ylobacter-positive at slaughter. However, implementation of current biosecu rity methods makes this difficult to achieve.