Review of the Food-borne Zoonoses Research ... - ARCHIVE: Defra

Figure 4. Laboratory reports of Campylobacter in the UK 1992 – 2005.
Most cases of Campylobacter infection are thought to be sporadic and the routes of
transmission remain unclear. Poultry meat may be an important vehicle of infection and
surveys have shown that a significant proportion of raw poultry meat for human
consumption is contaminated. Evidence from experimental studies suggests that
Campylobacter has a low infectious dose and thus cross-contamination of ready-to eat
foods by raw meat may be an important route of infection. The roles of other animal
products, other foods, water and non-foodborne exposures are still under investigation 1 .
4.4 Cryptosporidium
Cryptosporidia are protozoan parasites with a widespread distribution in farm and wild
animals. The parasite can cause clinical disease (cryptosporidiosis) in animals, usually
neo-natal diarrhoea, although subclinical infection is common particularly in lambs.
Typing for Cryptosporidium parvum is now becoming available and has enabled
improved identification of the different species. C. hominis (previously C. parvum
genotype 1) is normally only recovered from humans although there have been
exceptional reports of isolates reported from animals. C. parvum (previously C. parvum
genotype 2) is found in both animals and humans 1 .
In the UK in 2005 there were 5,288 cases reported compared with 4,197 cases in 2004
(see figure 5) 1 .
1 Data sourced from Zoonoses Report UK – available via
http://defraweb/animalh/diseases/zoonoses/zoonoses_reports/zoonoses2005.pdf
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