NARMS Retail Food Surveillance and Outbreak Investigation in Ohio

Project SummaryTo help address the needs of the NARMS retail meat surveillance project, as a surveillance site,we will sample packages of retail poultry, beef and pork from a randomly generated list of grocerystores in the surrounding area. Aliquots from each of eighty monthly packages will be culturedfor pathogens, Salmonella and Campylobacter, along with two indicator bacteria, E. coli andEnterococcus, to address potential resistance mechanisms which may be transferred topathogens. The resulting isolates will be shipped monthly to FDA for species and serotypeconfirmation and antimicrobial susceptibility testing, with duplicate isolates maintained in ourculture collection. We expect to have successfully sampled 960 packages of retail beef, pork, andpoultry during each 12-month study period.We expect that these efforts will help to provide critical data to not only track the current stateof antimicrobial resistance among foodborne pathogens and indicator bacteria found in retailmeat, but also to impact future FDA policy and regulations and monitor the success of actionsand interventions. In addition to our contributions to the retail food surveillance program, as aNARMS retail food participating laboratory we will be available to support foodborne diseaseoutbreak investigation. We already have a close working relationship with the Ohio Departmentof Health laboratory and the Ohio Department of Agriculture?s Animal Disease DiagnosticLaboratory. We will be available to directly support and extend their existing capability foroutbreak investigation and sample process and testing. We also collaborate closely with the OSUVeterinary Medical Center Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory, which participates in the Vet-LIRNlaboratory system, as does the ODA ADDL. Our existing close collaborations with theselaboratories located in central Ohio will allow us to be effective as a NARMS retail foodsurveillance project laboratory, and to contribute to the support of other laboratories withrelated missions.An additional benefit of our participation in the NARMS retail food surveillance program is thatwe plan to engage multiple students from both the professional veterinary medicine andveterinary public health programs in this project. Students with an interest in food safety andantimicrobial resistance and stewardship will be able to gain laboratory experience and anunderstanding of the current antimicrobial resistance trends in foodborne pathogens. Thesestudents will then leave the university for careers in veterinary medicine and veterinary publichealth better trained in epidemiology, surveillance strategies, food safety and food microbiology,and public health practice.