Advances in enteropathogen control throughout the meat chicken production chain

Abstract

Enteropathogens, namely Salmonella and Campylobacter, are a concern in global public health and have been attributed in numerous risk assessments to a poultry source. During the last decade, a large body of research addressing this problem has been published. The literature reviewed contains review articles on certain aspects of poultry production chain; however, in the past decade there has not been a review on the entire chain-farm to fork-of poultry production. For this review, a pool of 514 articles were selected for relevance via a systematic screening process (from >7500 original search articles). These studies identified a diversity of management and intervention strategies for the elimination or reduction of enteropathogens in poultry production. Many studies were laboratory or limited field trials with implementation in true commercial operations being problematic. Entities considering using commercial antienteropathogen products and interventions are advised to perform an internal validation and fit-for-purpose trial as Salmonella and Campylobacter serovars and biovars may have regional diversity. Future research should focus on nonchemical application within the processing plant and how a combination of synergisticinterventions through the production chain may contribute to reducing the overall carcass burden of enteropathogens, coupled with increased consumer education on safe handling and cooking of poultry.