Campylobacter Attribution Project.

Descriptions

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has been funding a programme of research to improve understanding of the profile of Campylobacter infection in the Scottish population.The current contract covers the typing of all human campylobacter clinical samples submitted to Grampian Health Board (a sample set which has been proven to be representative of Scotland) and also the typing of isolates obtained from retail chicken and ruminant faeces. This project is no longer collecting and sequencing human clinical samples or food and animal samples, however, it is important for understanding the transmission of Campylobacter in Scotland that the typing of human and chicken campylobacter samples continues.Typing Campylobacter from poultry is a vital part of this project and sampling from Coupar Angus, the major poultry slaughterhouse in Scotland, will allow FSS to understand the impact the Scottish supply chain Campylobacter has on human cases of infection. Coupar Angus is currently planning to introduce imminently a range of interventions to reduce Campylobacter contamination of chickens. This current contract is required to be extended to ensure that the project can continue to capture the before and after effect of the interventions as they are introduced. Capturing the effect before interventions are in place is required to create a baseline of Campylobacter data specific for Coupar Angus to compare to the results after interventions are implemented. This task will commence on 1.10.2016 leading to an extension of the existing contract until March 2017.