The UK's Food Safety Authority (FSA) has announced a new strategy to reduce the number of people becoming ill from campylobacteriosis, a bacterium most frequently found in poultry products.
The new initiative, arising from an FSA paper titled 'A Refreshed Strategy To Reduce campylobacteriosis From Poultry', is to be discussed by the FSA Board at its meeting in Aberdeen on Wednesday, 11 September 2013.
‘What we have proposed in this paper is a shift in culture and a refocusing of effort by both government and the food industry to tackle this persistent and serious problem," Catherine Brown, FSA chief executive, said.
"While we remain committed to joint working with industry we want to encourage and see producers, processors and retailers treat campylobacter reduction not simply as a technical issue but as a core business priority – and I see some encouraging signs of that happening."
She added, "I feel that because this is a complex and difficult issue there has tended to be an acceptance that a high level of contamination will inevitably occur and that there’s little that can be done to prevent it. The FSA doesn’t believe this is the case and this paper sets out how together we can make progress towards reducing the number of people who get ill from campylobacter."
Campylobacter is the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK and is believed to be responsible for about 460,000 cases of food poisoning, 22,000 hospitalisations and 110 deaths each year.
50-80% of cases of campylobacteriosis in the UK and other EU countries can be attributed to poultry and the majority of these are likely to be linked to raw poultry meat.
An FSA survey of chicken on sale in the UK (2007/8) indicated that 65% of chicken on sale in shops was contaminated with campylobacter, with recent monitoring showing little change in this figure.
Campylobacteriosis is also the top foodborne problem across the EU with an estimated 9 million cases arising each year. The cost to public health systems and to lost productivity in the EU is estimated to be around €2.4 billion a year by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Ellen Lunney
