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<p>This study aims to continue the epidemiological surveillance of campylobacteriosis in Oxfordshire, which has been ongoing since 2003, to include the period in which current interventions designed to control campylobacter in the poultry industry are expected to deliver results in human disease reduction.</p>
<p>To enable interpretation of any changes in the incidence and types of campylobacter causing human disease attributable to the food chain, it is essential to maintain the current level of surveillance. This will be achieved by the molecular characterisation of all positively identified campylobacter isolates submitted to the routine microbiology laboratory at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford over the three-year funding period.</p>
<p>Once isolated in the laboratory, campylobacter isolates will be placed onto charcoal swabs and stored refrigerated to maintain their viability. Swabs will be collected several times a week and transported to the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology laboratories, where they will be re-plated and growth used for both DNA preparation and isolate storage at -80°C. Multilocus sequence typing will be performed immediately, using established protocols and the data obtained deposited in the web-based pubMLST campylobacter database (http://pubmlst.org/campylobacter) which currently contains data on over 11,000 campylobacter isolates. </p>
<p>Background: Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) for campylobacter has become an important tool in human and veterinary public health practice and research. The data generated have clarified many epidemiological questions and are now the principal means of attributing human cases to source.</p>
<p>A jointly funded project between the FSA, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Health Protection Agency has enabled the sequencing of an ongoing collection of human isolates from Oxfordshire, extending from 2003 to the present. Related datasets have also been assembled with funding from the FSA-funded Campylobacter Sentinel Surveillance Scheme. These data represent a unique, continuous longitudinal series of historical data that will be used as a baseline, against which the effects of interventions designed to control campylobacter in the poultry industry and implemented during the life of the project can be measured. </p>