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Title: Detection of Campylobacter from broiler carcass rinse samples utilizing the TECRA Visual Immunoassay (VIA)

Author
item Bailey, Joseph
item Cray, Paula
item Richardson, Larry
item Cox Jr, Nelson
item COX, J - UNIV OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Submitted to: Journal of Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/22/2008
Publication Date: 12/1/2008
Citation: Bailey, J.S., Cray, P.J., Richardson, L.J., Cox Jr, N.A., Cox, J.M. 2008. Detection of Campylobacter from broiler carcass rinse samples utilizing the TECRA Visual Immunoassay (VIA). Journal of Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology.16(4):374-380.

Interpretive Summary: Campylobacter continues to be one of the primary foodborne bacterial pathogens and is implicated in as many as one million cases of human gastroenteritis per year. Intervention procedures for reducing Campylobacter from chicken and other foods are being developed and more sensitive methods are needed to monitor the effectiveness of these procedures. Processed chickens from 19 processing plants were sampled and a proprietary visual immunoassay and enrichment broth were shown to be significantly more sensitive for recovery of Campylobacter than the currently used USDA, FSIS cultural procedure. These data are important for clinicians, diagnosticians, and regulatory agencies as they generate data and policies regarding control of Campylobacter.

Technical Abstract: Poultry meat is considered to be a major vector of transmission of Campylobacter, either directly, through consumption of poorly prepared product or cross-contamination, or indirectly, through introduction of the bacterium into the food production environment. Efficient detection of Campylobacter is intrinsic to the management of the pathogen during poultry production. The TECRA® CAMVIA protocol; enrichment in a proprietary TECRA® Campylobacter enrichment broth followed by an ELISA, was compared to a conventional cultural method, with enrichment in Bolton’s medium (containing lysed horse blood), followed by plating to Campy Cefex agar. Of the 398 broiler carcass rinses tested, from 19 commercial processing plants, a total of 350 carcasses (88%) were found to be positive for Campylobacter by at least one method. The TECRA® ELISA yielded 317 Campylobacter-positive results, 4 of which were false positive and 22 of which were false negative, while conventional enrichment and plating detected the bacterium in only 280 samples with 48 false negatives. These data demonstrate that the TECRA® ELISA has a statistically higher sensitivity and specificity than conventional culture procedures.