THE INFLUENCE OF SALMONELLA IN PIGS PRE-HARVEST ON SALMONELLA HUMAN HEALTH COSTS AND RISK FROM PORK

Salmonellosis in people is a costly disease, much of it occurring because of food associated exposure. We develop a farm-to-fork model which estimates the pork associated Salmonella risk and human health costs. This analysis focuses on the components of the pork production chain up to the point of producing a chilled pork carcass. Sensitivity and scenario analysis show that changes that occur in Salmonella status during processing are substantially more important for human health risk and have a higher benefit/cost ratio for application of strategies that control Salmonella compared with on-farm strategies.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Finnish Salmonella Control Program -- Efficiency and Viability in Food Safety Promotion

When joining the EU, Finland was granted a permission to run its own food safety policy concerning Salmonella. The policy is called Finnish Salmonella Control Program (FSCP) and it covers the main animal production lines: pork, beef, poultry, and also the products thereof e.g. meat and eggs. By committing to follow an EU Commission approved national program Finland received so called additional guarantees from the EU. These guarantees allow it to require respective salmonella protection levels from similar products imported to the country. In order to continue the program its economic efficiency has to be thoroughly evaluated. The objective of FCSP is that no more than 1% of the animals and meat should be contaminated with Salmonella at the national level. Respectively, at the abattoir or meat cutting plant level the goal is 5% . These quite strict objectives were reached well in 1995-2001. The industry is responsible for running the program in practice. National authorities have their emphasis in coordination, collecting of data and supervision. The costs of the program are almost fully carried by the industry. This paper evaluates the efficiency and viability of FSCP as a whole. It can be concluded, that money used running the program is well-spent: health benefits produced, estimated either using a cost-of-illness type of calculations or a willingness-to-pay measure from a consumer survey are many times larger than the costs of the program. In the end it can be concluded that FSCP is a good example of economically viable tool for sustaining public health.food safety, salmonella control, policy evaluation, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

An Incentive System for Salmonella Control in the Pork Supply Chain

This paper presents a dynamic principal-agent analysis of an incentive system for Salmonella control in the pork supply chain. The incentive system determines quality premiums to the producer, testing frequencies for hogs delivered, as well as charges to the producer for testing and penalties. Using cost estimates and technical parameters, we evaluate the cost effectiveness of plant and farm control measures and trade-offs between prevalence reduction and related costs and gains. We also assess the impact of ownership structure on incentive system parameters and performance for a wide range of prevalence threshold levels. Differences in control actions, bacteriological prevalence and the overall welfare gain for the chain are very small across ownership structures. Changes in the prevalence threshold level lead to substantial changes in the use of farm and plant control packages and performance measures.dynamic programming, food quality, principal-agent, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Livestock Production/Industries,

Prevalence and number of Salmonella in retail pork sausages

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of Salmonella in Irish pork sausage at retail level. Samples, comprising branded prepacked sausages, loose sausages from supermarket meat counters and butcher shops, were collected from selected retail sites in four cities from October to December 2001 and from June to August 2002. A 3-tube Most Probable Number (MPN) method was used to enumerate Salmonella in a selected number of samples, which were positive by enrichment. Salmonella serotypes were detected in 4.4% and 1.7% of samples at each of the respective sampling periods; a level similar to those reported in other U.S. and U.K. studies. Limited results available on enumeration suggest that contamination rates were low. This study revealed that Salmonella are present in a proportion of Irish sausages and further risk analysis work is necessary in order to quantify the risk posed to public health. Keywords: control programme, enumeration, serology, bacteriology, food safety

Salmonella infection in a multiple-site swine production system in Brazil

A longitudinal study was conducted in a multiple-site swine production system. Individually identified piglets were sampled for Salmonella fecal excretion and serology. Furthermore, intestinal content, mesenteric lymph nodes and blood samples were taken from these animals at slaughter. In addition, feed samples were taken throughout the study period. Piglets were fecal-culture and serology negative until the nursery phase, but became Salmonella positive in the early finishing phase. On this sampling day, 28.6% of finishers were seropositive and 75% were shedding Salmonella in feces. At slaughter, the seroprevalence (76.9%) was higher than in the early finishing, but Salmonella was isolated from intestinal content or mesenteric lymph nodes in only 19.2% of the sampled pigs. Salmonella was isolated from three out of 26 feed samples, being all positive samples collected during the finishing period. In spite of being isolated from different system sites, 89.56% of all Salmonella strains belong to serovar Typhimurium

Tracking Foodborne Pathogens from Farm to Table: Data Needs to Evaluate Control Options

Food safety policymakers and scientists came together at a conference in January 1995 to evaluate data available for analyzing control of foodborne microbial pathogens. This proceedings starts with data regarding human illnesses associated with foodborne pathogens and moves backwards in the food chain to examine pathogen data in the processing sector and at the farm level. Of special concern is the inability to link pathogen data throughout the food chain. Analytical tools to evaluate the impact of changing production and consumption practices on foodborne disease risks and their economic consequences are presented. The available data are examined to see how well they meet current analytical needs to support policy analysis. The policymaker roundtable highlights the tradeoffs involved in funding databases, the economic evaluation of USDA's Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) proposal and other food safety policy issues, and the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach toward improving food safety databases.food safety, cost benefit analysis, foodborne disease risk, foodborne pathogens, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), probabilistic scenario analysis, fault-tree analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Comparative Assessment of Human Exposure to Antibiotic-Resistant \u3ci\u3eSalmonella\u3c/i\u3e due to the Consumption of Various Food Products in the United States

Antibiotic resistance (AR) was increasingly recognized as a global and national problem. Prevention efforts are hampered by a lack of complete understanding of how transmission pathways contribute to human AR exposure. Many reports have indicated the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in foods at retail, suggesting that food consumption, animal-derived foods in particular, can represent a significant source of AR exposure among consumers. The presence of Salmonella, including antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, has been frequently reported in terrestrial animal-derived foods such as meat, poultry, and dairy products, as well as in aquaculture products. Identification of the significant food sources that harbor relatively substantial antibiotic-resistant Salmonella is the key for the design and implementation of effective and target AR mitigation strategies. Thus, a systematic evaluation of the relative contribution of different food sources to human antibiotic-resistant Salmonella was imperative. This thesis aimed to gather qualitative and quantitative information about the contamination of antibiotic-resistant non-typhoidal Salmonella in various retail foods in the U.S. and identify knowledge gaps using systematic review (SR) and meta-analysis (MA) approaches. The data on resistant Salmonella concentration in foods has not been found. Resistant Salmonella prevalence in regulated commodities (beef, chicken, turkey, pork) and other food categories were conducted for major antibiotic classes. Generally, poultry, pork, and turkey had a higher prevalence of resistant Salmonella than beef, while vegetables and imported foods (mainly spices in documented studies) had a lower prevalence. For antibiotics classes, tetracycline resistance was the most prevalent across major commodities. There is a moderate level of resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, but the significance in clinical practice indicates a potential threats to public health. Another objective was to develop a stochastic comparative exposure assessment model to estimate the relative contribution of various animal-derived food groups to overall foodborne exposure to cephem-resistant Salmonella. The model consists of four modules: retail, transport, storage, and preparation. Generally, the results showed that ground beef and chicken parts accounted for the largest proportion of total exposure to cephem-resistant Salmonella compared to pork cuts and ground turkey. The contamination level in products at retail and cooking temperature were the top influencing factors of the foodborne exposure for all food products evaluated in the present study. Foodborne illness source attribution is the foundation of a risk-based food safety system. The present project provides a risk-based estimation of the degree to which different food categories are responsible for resistant Salmonella infections. With these estimates, target prevention measures can be designed and implemented to effectively mitigate the AR threat to public health attributable to the food consumption. Advisor: Bing Wan

Resilience in the pork supply chain from the food safety perspective

Challenges in food production are plenty, while resources are scarce. In the interest of the consumer as well as the producer, it is of utmost importance to prevent unwanted events from happening. This may be done through focus on resilience in the pig and pork supply production in relation to food safety. In this paper, resilience—and its counterpart vulnerability—is introduced and discussed specifically for food safety. It is noted that to manage unwanted events, focus must be on effective handling on the event itself. But focus should also be on the patterns of events - including the trends in society which may be leading to increased or decreased risks. To gain a more comprehendsive understanding of these patterns, an analysis of the entire structure of the production system is necessary. Through an analysis of these three levels—event, patterns and structure—and their complex interrelationships, targeted prevention activeties may be identified and put in place to raise the system’s long-term resilience. Hereby, the risk to consumers and producers can be reduced to an acceptable level. Such risk-mitigating activities may consist of surveillance, own check systems, HACCP, risk analysis, and legislation including use of private standards

Proceedings book...

Palestras/Keynote: Pork production chain: importance and challenges faced/Janice Reis Ciacci Zanella; Toxoplasma gondii and the role of pork/Sara M. Pires, Heidi Enemark, Thomas Rosendal, Anna Lúnden, Pikka Jokelainen, Lis Alban; Resilience in the pork supply chain from the food safety perspective/Lis Alban, Barbara Haesler, Liza Rosenbaum Nielsen, Simon Ruegg; Transmission of antimicrobial resistance from pigs to humans: trues and lies/Luca Guardabassi; The use of risk assessment to support control of Salmonella in pork/Maarten Nauta, Luis Corbellini, Søren Aabo. Epidemiology of foodborne pathogens and zoonotic diseases in the pork production chain; Surveillance and control of foodborne pathogens at pre-harvest and post-harvest level; Antimicrobials in swine production, antimicrobial resistance, alternative strategies to antimicrobial use; Risk assessment and risk communication in food safety; Slaughter process and Meat Inspection: quality, hygiene and safety;bitstream/item/164383/1/final8680.pdfSafePork 2017

A novel strategy to obtain quantitative data for modelling: Combined enrichment and real-time PCR for enumeration of salmonellae from pig carcasses

The primary sources for the major zoonotic pathogen Salmonella are food-producing animals such as pigs and poultry. For risk assessment and hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) concepts, it is essential to produce large amounts of quantitative data, which is currently not achievable with the standard cultural based methods for enumeration of Salmonella