Public Health burden of exposure to microbes and parasites originating from pigs and pork

The production and consumption of pork still is an important source of human illness. Quantifying the burden of illness requires the integration of data from a wide variety of sources. First, relevant hazards need to be identified, based on sources such as outbreaks of human illness, and the occurrence of pathogens in pigs, pork and pork products. Then, the incidence of disease due to these pathogens in the population must be assessed. Reported cases only reflect a minor part of all illness and there are different approaches to estimating underreporting factors. The health impact of different pathogens varies widely in severity, duration and associated fatalities

Ziektelast van infectieziekten in Europa: een pilot studie

Consequences of different infectious diseases cannot be adequately compared with each other on the basis of the number of patients or mortality data only. It is better to combine all health effects and express the total impact as disease burden, which also takes duration and severity of diseases into account. Information on disease burden also helps to set priorities in European policy for infectious disease control. In a pilot study, the disease burden of seven infectious diseases in Europe has been estimated. In spite of various limitations with regard to availability and quality of data, it was found that HIV infection, tuberculosis and influenza cause, among the selected infectious diseases, the highest disease burden in Europe. Foodborne diseases caused by the bacteria Campylobacter spp., enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. and, in particular, measles, are associated with a lower burden. The current disease burden of infectious diseases reflects the balance between the disease threats and the effectiveness of preventive strategies. A low burden stresses the need for the continued support of these strategies, while a high burden indicates the need for additional interventions. Based on this pilot, the RIVM recommends that a full burden of disease study - combining several methods of investigation - be conducted in cooperation with different European institutes.De gevolgen van verschillende infectieziekten zijn onderling niet goed te vergelijken op basis van het aantal patienten of sterftecijfers alleen. Het is beter om alle gezondheidseffecten te combineren en de totale impact uit de drukken in ziektelast, dat ook rekening houdt met duur en ernst van ziekten. Informatie over ziektelast helpt prioriteiten te stellen in het Europese beleid op het gebied van infectieziektenbestrijding. In een pilotstudie is de ziektelast geschat van zeven infectieziekten in Europa. Ondanks verschillende beperkingen in beschikbaarheid en kwaliteit van gegevens wordt geschat dat HIV-infectie, tuberculose en influenza van de geselecteerde infectieziekten de grootste ziektelast in Europa veroorzaken. Voedseloverdraagbare ziekten die worden veroorzaakt door de bacterien Campylobacter spp., enterohemorragische Escherichia coli en Salmonella spp., en mazelen in het bijzonder, zijn geassocieerd met een lagere ziektelast. De huidige ziektelast van de infectieziekten weerspiegelt de balans tussen bedreigingen van de ziekten en effectiviteit van preventiemaatregelen. Een lage ziektelast benadrukt de noodzaak van voortdurende ondersteuning van deze maatregelen, een hoge ziektelast duidt erop dat aanvullende acties nodig zijn. Op basis van deze pilotstudie adviseert het RIVM om samen met verschillende Europese instituten een uitgebreidere studie uit te voeren, die verschillende onderzoeksmethoden combineert

Future challenges to microbial food safety

Despite significant efforts by all parties involved, there is still a considerable burden of foodborne illness, in which micro-organisms play a prominent role. Microbes can enter the food chain at different steps, are highly versatile and can adapt to the environment allowing survival, growth and production of toxic compounds. This sets them apart from chemical agents and thus their study from food toxicology. We summarize the discussions of a conference organized by the Dutch Food and Consumer Products Safety Authority and the European Food Safety Authority. The goal of the conference was to discuss new challenges to food safety that are caused by micro-organisms as well as strategies and methodologies to counter these. Management of food safety is based on generally accepted principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points and of Good Manufacturing Practices. However, a more pro-active, science-based approach is required, starting with the ability to predict where problems might arise by applying the risk analysis framework. Developments that may influence food safety in the future occur on different scales (from global to molecular) and in different time frames (from decades to less than a minute). This necessitates development of new risk assessment approaches, taking the impact of different drivers of change into account. We provide an overview of drivers that may affect food safety and their potential impact on foodborne pathogens and human disease risks. We conclude that many drivers may result in increased food safety risks, requiring active governmental policy setting and anticipation by food industries whereas other drivers may decrease food safety risks. Monitoring of contamination in the food chain, combined with surveillance of human illness and epidemiological investigations of outbreaks and sporadic cases continue to be important sources of information. New approaches in human illness surveillance include the use of molecular markers for improved outbreak detection and source attribution, sero-epidemiology and disease burden estimation. Current developments in molecular techniques make it possible to rapidly assemble information on the genome of various isolates of microbial species of concern. Such information can be used to develop new tracking and tracing methods, and to investigate the behavior of micro-organisms under environmentally relevant stress conditions. These novel tools and insight need to be applied to objectives for food safety strategies, as well as to models that predict microbial behavior. In addition, the increasing complexity of the global food systems necessitates improved communication between all parties involved: scientists, risk assessors and risk managers, as well as consumer

Estimating the Costs and the Disease Burden Associated With Campylobacter Infections and Sequelae in the Netherlands

Campylobacter infections pose an important public health problem in the Netherlands. Approximately 79,000 persons per year are estimated to experience symptoms of acute gastroenteritis. Further annually some 1400 ReA cases, 60 GBS cases and 11 IBD cases are associated with a previous Campylobacter infection. Using a stochastic simulation model the disease burden and the cost-of-illness of Campylobacter infections and its sequelae were estimated. Estimates of the Campylobacter-associated disease burden and costs-of-illness were 1185 DALYs (90% C.I. 693 - 1845 DALYs) per year and some 21 million E (90% C.I. 10 - 38 million E) per year respectively.Campylobacter, sequelae, cost-of-illness, disease burden, Netherlands, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Unravelling the reservoirs for colonisation of infants with Campylobacter spp. in rural Ethiopia: Protocol for a longitudinal study during a global pandemic and political tensions

INTRODUCTION: Undernutrition is an underlying cause of mortality in children under five (CU5) years of age. Animal-source foods have been shown to decrease malnutrition in CU5. Livestock are important reservoirs for METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This longitudinal study involves 115 infants who are followed from birth to 12 months of age and are selected randomly from 10 kebeles of Haramaya woreda, East Hararghe zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Questionnaire-based information is obtained on demographics, livelihoods, wealth, health, nutrition and women empowerment; animal ownership/management and diseases; and water, sanitation and hygiene. Faecal samples are collected from infants, mothers, siblings and livestock, drinking water and soil. These samples are analysed by a range of phenotypic and genotypic microbiological methods to characterise the genetic structure of the ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Florida Internal Review Board (IRB201903141), the Haramaya University Institutional Health Research Ethics Committee (COHMS/1010/3796/20) and the Ethiopia National Research Ethics Review Committee (SM/14.1/1059/20). Written informed consent is obtained from all participating households. Research findings will be disseminated to stakeholders through conferences and peer-reviewed journals and through the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems

A Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment for Salmonella in Pigs for the European Union

A farm‐to‐consumption quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) for Salmonella in pigs in the European Union has been developed for the European Food Safety Authority. The primary aim of the QMRA was to assess the impact of hypothetical reductions of slaughter‐pig prevalence and the impact of control measures on the risk of human Salmonella infection. A key consideration during the QMRA development was the characterization of variability between E.U. Member States (MSs), and therefore a generic MS model was developed that accounts for differences in pig production, slaughterhouse practices, and consumption patterns. To demonstrate the parameterization of the model, four case study MSs were selected that illustrate the variability in production of pork meat and products across MSs. For the case study MSs the average probability of illness was estimated to be between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 10 million servings given consumption of one of the three product types considered (pork cuts, minced meat, and fermented ready‐to‐eat sausages). Further analyses of the farm‐to‐consumption QMRA suggest that the vast majority of human risk derives from infected pigs with a high concentration of Salmonella in their feces (≥104 CFU/g). Therefore, it is concluded that interventions should be focused on either decreasing the level of Salmonella in the feces of infected pigs, the introduction of a control step at the abattoir to reduce the transfer of feces to the exterior of the pig, or a control step to reduce the level of Salmonella on the carcass post‐evisceration