College of Veterinary Medicine
IDMEL

Campylobacter is one of the common causes of foodborne bacterial infection in the developed world. In the US the incidence of foodborne Campylobacter infection are estimated to be more than 2 million, resulting in more than 10,000 hospitalization and treatment cost exceeding 1.7 million (Mead et al., 1999).  Many of these cases are believed to be due to unsafe food handling. This study encompasses three major aspects; preharvest, processing and postharvest and investigates possible sources of contamination from farm-to-table. 

Goals

• Identify sources of Campylobacter contamination at different stages including on-farm, processing and post harvest.

• Compare foodborne pathogen load and antimicrobial resistant strain dissemination between pigs raised conventionally and those raised in antimicrobial-free farms and among different geographic locations.

• Study the diversity of Campylobacter strains collected at preharvest, processing and postharvest stages using phenotypic methods.                             

IDMEL Personnel:

Daniel A. Tadesse (PhD student)
Wondwossen A. Gebreyes (Principle Investigator)

Other Collaborators:

Morgan Morrow (North Carolina State University)
Peter Bahnson (University of Wisconsin at Madison)
Julie Funk (Michigan State University)

Funding:

USDA grant 2002-51110-01508