Influence of Season and Geography on Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli Subtypes in Housed Broiler Flocks Reared in Great Britain

Abstract

Campylobacter spp., especially Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli, are the main cause of human bacterial gastroenteritis in the developed world (http://www.who.int/mediacentre /factsheets/fs255/en/). Chicken meat is frequently contaminated with Campylobacter (19), and it is a commonly held view that reducing the number of flocks infected with this organism would reduce the number of human Campylobacter cases. A better understanding of the epidemiology of Campylobacter in broiler flocks is required in order to design successful control programs at the farm level.In some European countries, flock colonization of chickens with Campylobacter has a clear seasonal pattern, with highest rates seen in the summer or autumn (20). Studies in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s suggested that there was no increase in the proportion of flocks colonized with campylobacters in warmer months (21, 28). However, we recently found that housed flocks were more likely to be Campylobacter positive in summer (46) in a geographical subset of the data in this study, and evidence of seasonality was also found in 401 batches reared in the United Kingdom in 2008 (20). The reasons for the seasonal variation are not fully understood but are likely to involve the frequency and nature of exposure of the flocks to Campylobacter spp. There is further evidence that climatic factors such as temperature correlate with both broiler flock and human infections (36,43,52). Temperature could also affect the environmental sources of Campylobacter spp. to which broiler chickens may become exposed. A better understanding of the roles of season and climatic factors and their relative impacts on broiler flock colonization with Campylobacter will be useful for policy makers and broiler companies who are formulating control programs to reduce flock infection with this important zoonotic pathogen.Typing of isolates from foods and clinical cases has provided evidence that many strains isolated from chickens share attributes with those from human cases (13,25,37). Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) has been used to assess the relative importance of sources, reservoirs, and transmission routes for human Campylobacter infection in the United Kingdom (48,56). The population of Campylobacter isolates from human cases in England has been well analyzed by studies of isolates from Ͼ2,900 cases from three areas spanning the years 2000 to 2006 (14, 56). However, data sets for strains from chicken flocks at slaughter were smaller and may have been less representative. For example, while 307 chicken isolates were cited

A Longitudinal 6-Year Study of the Molecular Epidemiology of Clinical Campylobacter Isolates in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

“…This pattern has been reported previously for ST-45 (22,29,44) and ST-283 complexes (29) but not for the ST-42 complex. The ST-45 and ST-283 complexes have both been identified as chicken associated (7,21,41), and the ST-45 complex has additionally been identified from a wide range of wild animal sources (27), but the ST-42 complex has been predominantly associated with ruminant hosts (6,13,21).…”

Poultry as a Host for the Zoonotic PathogenCampylobacter jejuni

“…Campylobacter can be frequently found in surface water and is part of the natural intestinal microbiota of a wide range of wild and domestic animals, especially poultry (Newell 2002, Whyte et al 2004, Abulreesh et al 2006, Young et al 2007, Ogden et al 2009, Jokinen et al 2011. The estimated Campylobacter prevalence in poultry and nonpoultry farm animals depends on season, age of animal, flock or herd size and type, diet, husbandry practices, and geography, with C. jejuni being the most isolated species (Kuana et al 2008, McDowell et al 2008, Zweifel et al 2008, Ellis-Iversen et al 2009, Messens et al 2009, Nä ther et al 2009, EFSA 2010a, EFSA and ECDC 2011, Jorgensen et al 2011. In pigs C. coli, however, dominates (84% of the isolates in 2009) (EFSA and ECDC 2011).…”

Impact of Rurality, Broiler Operations, and Community Socioeconomic Factors on the Risk of Campylobacteriosis in Maryland

“…has been shown to survive and grow within the controlled atmosphere of packaging at room temperature (Scherer et al, 2006). Studies of the impact of environmental temperature reveal that during months with higher temperatures, higher number of isolates have been obtained from poultry, the highest being during June in the northern hemisphere (Jorgensen et al, 2011). The issue of seasonality will be addressed below.…”