<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The prevalence, count and molecular identification of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in Polish poultry meat were analysed. 181 samples of meat from chicken (70), turkey (47), duck (54) and goose (10) were studied. <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. was found in 64% of meat samples. The highest prevalence of this pathogen was detected for duck meat. On average 80% of duck samples were contaminated with <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. The counts of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in positive samples remained under ten colony forming units per gram of product in 59% of poultry meat. <italic>C. jejuni</italic> was more frequently detected in poultry meat than <italic>C. coli</italic>.</abstract>

The prevalence, count and molecular identification of Campylobacter spp. in Polish poultry meat were analysed. 181 samples of meat from chicken (70), turkey (47), duck (54) and goose (10) were studied. Campylobacter spp. was found in 64% of meat samples. The highest prevalence of this pathogen was detected for duck meat. On average 80% of duck samples were contaminated with Campylobacter spp. The counts of Campylobacter spp. in positive samples remained under ten colony forming units per gram of product in 59% of poultry meat. C. jejuni was more frequently detected in poultry meat than C. coli.

<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">During the last few decades, the global production of poultry meat has increased rapidly from 58.5 million tonnes in 2000 to 95.5 million tonnes in 2014. Production is not equally distributed; the Americas accounted for 43% of the total production, Asia (mainly China) for 34%, Europe for 17% and Africa and Oceania for 5% and 1% of the whole production in 2012 (93 million tonnes), respectively. In 2023, poultry meat is expected to be the largest meat sector by around 130.7 million tonnes (Skarp <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_028">2016</a>). Chicken meat is currently the first most widely produced poultry meat followed by turkey meat, duck meat and goose meat. Although much attention has focused on microbiological safety of poultry meat, this type of product remains a significant cause of food-borne disease in the world. The most reported poultry-borne gastroenteritic disease is campylobacteriosis. In 2015 there were 229,213 cases of campylobacteriosis diagnosed (EFSA, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_007">2016</a>). Infection in humans is mainly caused by the zoonotic pathogen <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. Poultry is a natural host for <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in general, and that colonized birds are the primary vector for transmitting this pathogen to humans (Bless <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_003">2014</a>; Rożynek <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_027">2009</a>).Although poultry meat is becoming increasingly popular, relatively little research has been done investigating the presence and count of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in other than chicken types of poultry meat. In order to add more insight to these issue the objective of this study was to determine the prevalence, count and genetic diversity of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in different kind of poultry meat available in local trade network.One hundred and eighty one samples of four types of commercially available fresh poultry meat were microbiologically analysed from 2013 to 2015. The samples of meat were transported to the Laboratory of Microbiology in isothermal containers, maintaining the temperature at 0–2°C, and tested immediately on reaching the laboratory. A total of 70 chicken, 47 turkey, 54 duck and 10 goose meat portions were examined in terms of the prevalence and count of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. isolation and count were performed according to PN-ISO 10272-1:2007+Ap1:2008 and PKN ISO/TS 10272-2:2008. To confirm isolates and identify the species, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods was applied (Maćkiw <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_016">2012</a>). For quality control, <italic>C. jejuni</italic> ATCC 33291 and <italic>C. coli</italic> ATCC 33559 strains were used. Prevalence data for <italic>Campylobacte</italic>r spp. sorted by meat type, and species were analyzed using the analysis of variance test ANOVA (Statistica 6.0 PL). The significance level was P &lt; 0.05. In case of finding significant differences the post-hoc analysis was done using the Tukey test.The frequency of <italic>Campylobacte</italic>r spp. detection and counts in the tested poultry meat is shown in Table <a ref-type="table" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_tab_001">I</a>. Examination of the meats revealed that the vast majority of samples (64%) were contaminated with <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. The prevalence of this genus ranged from 38% to 80%, respectively for turkey and duck. The direct plating method yielded enumeration results from &lt; 10 CFU/g to 1.0 × 103 CFU/g. Enumeration data showed the greater number of samples were positive only after enrichment (68%) indicating low microbiological load of Campylobacter on analysed poultry meat (Table <a ref-type="table" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_tab_001">I</a>).<table-wrap id="j_01.3001.0011.6152_tab_001" position="float"><label>Table I</label><caption><italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. presence and counts in different types of poultry meat.</caption></table-wrap>Of the 116 positive samples, isolates originating from a variety of poultry meat were lost in the course of freeze storage, leaving isolates from 97 samples for inclusion in the PCR analysis. Of the 97 <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. isolates, 61 and 36 were confirmed based on PCR as <italic>C. jejuni</italic> and <italic>C. coli</italic>, respectively (Table <a ref-type="table" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_tab_002">II</a>). Variability in <italic>C. jejuni</italic> and <italic>C. coli</italic> prevalence observed in samples obtained from different types of poultry meat was not statistically significant.<table-wrap id="j_01.3001.0011.6152_tab_002" position="float"><label>Table II</label><caption>Genotypic identification of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp.</caption></table-wrap>Due to the lack of regulation in the EU legislation routine tests of poultry meat for the presence of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. are not carried out in Poland (Commission Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005 as amended). Therefore, the above quantitative and qualitative assessment results of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. prevalence in different types of poultry meat, available in Polish trade are a valuable source of information on this pathogen contamination.In this study <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. was isolated from 64% of poultry meat. Within the tested meat types, highest <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. prevalence was found in duck (80%) followed by chicken (70%), goose (60%), and turkey (38%). Similar results were obtained by Korsak <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_014">2015</a>). Polish studies at the retail level revealed that 49.3% of poultry samples were contaminated with <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. Our results on the prevalence of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in raw poultry meat are in agreement with data from other countries (Adzitey <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_001">2012</a>; Guyard-Nicodeme <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_009">2015</a>; Hansson <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_011">2015</a>). During the seven years of the study in the United States the average prevalence of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in retail broiler meat was 41%, with no statistical differences in the prevalence by year (P > 0.05) (Williams and Oyarzabal, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_030">2012</a>). In this study the prevalence of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in chicken meat was 70% and was lower than the frequency of contamination detected in research performed on chicken in Germany or Ireland, respectively, 87% and 91%. (Luber and Bartelt, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_015">2007</a>; Madden <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_017">2011</a>; Moran <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_020">2009</a>). The percentage obtained in our experiment for duck samples positive for this pathogen is similar to findings reported from Great Britain (Colles <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_005">2011</a>), Tanzania (Nonga and Muhairwa, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_021">2010</a>) and South Korea (Wei <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_029">2014</a>). According to Colles <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_005">2011</a>) and Wei <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_029">2014</a>) the percentage of contaminated duck samples was 93.3–100.0% and 96.6% respectively. Lower values were found by Jamali <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_013">2015</a>) and Rahimi <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_025">2011</a>). These authors detected <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in 39.2% and 35.5% duck samples, respectively. The differences among results might be due to diverse isolation methods, geographic, and seasonal factors (Adzitey <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_001">2012</a>; Jamali <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_013">2015</a>). With regard to the range of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> sp. – positive samples in turkey meat, the results of Atanassova <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_002">2007</a>) and Rahimi and Tajbakhsh (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_026">2008</a>) are similar to the results obtained in this investigation. Of the turkey meat examined, 34.0% and 24.7% samples were <italic>Campylobacter</italic> sp. positive (Atanassova <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_002">2007</a>; Rahimi and Tajbakhsh, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_026">2008</a>). Other authors have described higher levels. Cakmak and Erol (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_004">2012</a>) detected <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. from 45.6% of the turkey meat samples. On the other hand Noormohamed and Fakhr (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_022">2014</a>) found in their study that 17% of the turkey samples were positive for <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. There are very few data about prevalence of microbial contamination on goose meat. The first study has shown the occurrence of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in 26.5% goose samples (Rahimi <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_025">2011</a>). In later research reported by Jamali <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_013">2015</a>) prevalence was 26.1%.Our findings showed that <italic>C. jejuni</italic> was more prevalent than <italic>C. coli</italic> in poultry meat that is in agreement with data from other countries (Ghafir <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_008">2007</a>; Jamali <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_013">2015</a>; Noormohamed and Fakhr, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_022">2014</a>; Rahimi <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_025">2011</a>; Wei <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_029">2014</a>; Williams and Oyarzabal, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_030">2012</a>). The higher prevalence of <italic>C. jejuni</italic> in poultry meat is contrary to the findings conducted by researchers from India, Reunion Island and Poland. Malik <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_019">2014</a>) observed a shift in the prevalence of important species of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. <italic>C. coli</italic> were prevalent in 93.75% (30/32) and <italic>C. jejuni</italic> in 6.25% (2/32) among broilers slaughtered at chicken shop. Henry <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_012">2011</a>) also detected <italic>C. coli</italic> as a predominant species in chicken flocks. Maćkiw <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_016">2012</a>) reported that <italic>C. coli</italic> was the most ubiquitous. Its presence was determined in 75.5% samples of chicken meat and giblets, whereas <italic>C. jejuni</italic> was found in 24.5% of samples.The quantitative results from present study showed low <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. contamination level of examined poultry meat. <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. counts were &lt; 10 CFU/g in 68% of positive cases. 22% and 26% samples showed a pathogen concentration with a range of ≥ 10 to &lt; 100 CFU/g and with ≥ 100 CFU/g, respectively. Our findings are similar to data from the Belgian monitoring program where 58% of the samples were contaminated with &lt; 10 CFU/g, 29% of the samples were contaminated with a range of ≥ 10 to &lt; 100 CFU/g and 11% of the samples were contaminated with ≥ 100 CFU/g. The average <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. concentration was 4.8 × 101 CFU/g (Habib <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_010">2008</a>). The higher <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. load were found on Estonian broiler chicken products. Enumeration data, conducted by Mäesaar <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_018">2014</a>) showed that the overall arithmetic <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. CFU mean was 1.6 × 103 CFU/g of product. Relatively low counts obtained in our study and in research conducted by Habib <italic>et al</italic>. (<a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_010">2008</a>) might also be considered hazardous. In a restaurant-associated outbreak, the number of <italic>C. jejuni</italic> bacteria in the causative chicken meal was estimated to range from 53 to 750 CFU/g. Additionally, <italic>in vitro</italic> models indicate that the efficiency with which some Campylobacter strains invade intestinal cell lines is optimal at the lowest range of multiplicities of infection, which suggests that species is a highly efficient solitary invader (Habib <italic>et al.</italic>, <a ref-type="bibr" href="#j_01.3001.0011.6152_ref_010">2008</a>). Our study revealed that fresh poultry meat is often contaminated with <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. that decreases the quality of this kind of meat and constitutes a public health hazards.</div>

The Prevalence of <italic>Campylobacter</italic> spp. in Polish Poultry Meat

Polish Journal of Microbiology

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Prevalence of  spp. in Polish Poultry Meat

The prevalence, count and molecular identification of Campylobacter spp. in Polish poultry meat were analysed. 181 samples of meat from chicken (70), turkey...

The Prevalence of Campylobacter spp. in Polish Poultry Meat

Article Category: short-communication

Published Online: Feb 21, 2022

Page range: 117 - 120

Received: Feb 09, 2017

Accepted: May 17, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0011.6152

Keywords
spp., microbiological quality, poultry meat

© 2021 Anna Szosland-Fałtyn et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Prevalence of Campylobacter spp. in Polish Poultry Meat

Article Category: short-communication

Published Online: Feb 21, 2022

Page range: 117 - 120

Received: Feb 09, 2017

Accepted: May 17, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0011.6152

Keywordsspp., microbiological quality, poultry meat

© 2021 Anna Szosland-Fałtyn et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
spp., microbiological quality, poultry meat