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The project seeks to determine if there are any significant similarities between the campylobacters routinely found on poultry meat, and those causing human disease in Northern Ireland.
Progress: Approval to proceed was received in August 2002. Using samples of retail packs of raw poultry (n=40) Bolton and Preston enrichment media were compared. Modified charcoal cefoperazone deoxycholate agar (mCCDA) was used as the plating medium in both cases. Since the results were to be used in a major survey the normal inoculum of 25g plus 225ml of selective medium was compared with use of 10g sample plus 90ml of selective medium. Presumptive isolates were characterised using a PCR method in order to determine genus and a multiplex PCR method to speciate C. jejuni and C. coli. Based on the results obtained a second comparison was conducted using 21 samples of poultry. This aimed to investigate the effect of microaerobic as opposed to aerobic incubation of Bolton broth. <P>
From the above studies a protocol for a 12 month survey of retail poultry for campylobacters was prepared.
Sampling was initiated and the European Union poultry processor code used to ensure a wide range of processors were sampled.
Optimisation of the genotyping procedure, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) profiling, was undertaken with the aim of minimising costs.