NARMS Retail Food Surveillance in Ohio

Summary
Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly critical threat to human and animal health. In the US
alone, >23,000 individuals die each year because of infections with antimicrobial resistant
organisms. A common source of resistant bacterial pathogen exposure is food, in particular fresh
retail meat products. Most foodborne bacterial pathogens present in retail meat products also
colonize the gastrointestinal tract of food animals during production. Contamination of meat
products occurs during the slaughter process when GI contents, including fecal bacteria,
contaminate the carcass. Despite improved food safety, the burden of foodborne illness has
remained relatively unchanged for the past decade, affecting 1 in 6 individuals in the US annually.
To help address this important public health problem, we propose to accomplish the following
specific aims: 1) Contribute to national surveillance of foodborne pathogens and indicator
bacteria as part of the NARMS retail food surveillance program, 2) Support outbreak
investigations of foodborne disease by providing field epidemiology and laboratory support to
other agencies in Ohio, and 3) Conduct field research to understand the reservoirs for zoonotic
foodborne transmission, and the molecular epidemiology of antimicrobial resistant pathogens
and indicator bacteria in fresh retail meat products.
To accomplish these specific aims, we will serve as a NARMS retail meat and seafood surveillance
project contributing laboratory. As a large cluster surveillance site, we will sample retail poultry,
beef, pork, and seafood from retail stores within both metropolitan and rural Ohio. Forty-eight
monthly samples will be cultured for specific pathogens and indicator bacteria. The resulting
isolates will be further characterized and shipped monthly to FDA for antimicrobial susceptibility
testing, with duplicate isolates maintained in our culture collection. We expect to successfully
sample 528 packages of retail beef, pork, poultry, and seafood annually that will help to track the
current state of antimicrobial resistance among foodborne pathogens and indicator bacteria
found in retail meat and seafood but will also impact future FDA policy and regulations and
monitor the success of actions and interventions. In addition to our contributions to the retail
food surveillance program, as a NARMS participating laboratory we will be available to support
foodborne disease outbreak investigations in Ohio and nearby states as needed.