One Health surveillance - cross-sectoral detection, characterisation, and notification of foodborne pathogens
Investigación publicada en Frontiers in Public Health
8 de marzo de 2023
Several Proficiency Test (PT) or External Quality Assessment (EQA) schemes are currently available for assessing the ability of laboratories to detect and characterise enteropathogenic bacteria, but they are usually targeting one sector, covering either public health, food safety or animal health. In addition to sector-specific PTs/EQAs for detection, cross-sectoral panels would be useful for assessment of the capacity to detect and characterise foodborne pathogens in a One Health (OH) perspective and further improving food safety and interpretation of cross-sectoral surveillance data. The aims of the study were to assess the crosssectoral capability of European public health, animal health and food safety laboratories to detect, characterise and notify findings of the foodborne pathogens Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp. and Yersinia enterocolitica, and to develop recommendations for future cross-sectoral PTs and EQAs within OH. The PT/EQA scheme developed within this study consisted of a test panel of five samples, designed to represent a theoretical outbreak scenario. A total of 15 laboratories from animal health, public health and food safety sectors were enrolled in eight countries: Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The laboratories analysed the samples according to the methods used in the laboratory and reported the target organisms at species level, and if applicable, serovar for Salmonella and bioserotype for Yersinia. All 15 laboratories analysed the samples for Salmonella, 13 for Campylobacter and 11 for Yersinia. Analytical errors were predominately false negative results. One sample (S. Stockholm and Y. enterocolitica O:3/BT4) with lower concentrations of target organisms was especially challenging, resulting in six out of seven false negative results. These findings were associated with laboratories using smaller sample sizes and not using enrichment methods. Detection of Salmonella was most commonly mandatory to notify within the three sectors in the eight countries participating in the pilot whereas findings of Campylobacter and Y. enterocolitica were notifiable from human samples, but less commonly from animal and food samples. The results of the pilot PT/EQA conducted in this study confirmed the possibility to apply a cross-sectoral approach for assessment of the joint OH capacity to detect and characterise foodborne pathogens
Tast-Lathi E., Karamehmedovic N., Riedel H., Blom L., Boel J., Delibato E., Denis M., van Essen-Zanbergen A., Garcia-Fernandez A., Hendriksen R., Heydecke A., van Hoek AH., Huby T., Kwit R., Lucarelli C., Lundin K., Michelacci V., Owczarek S., Ring I., Kjeldgaard JS., Sjogren I., Skora M., Ugarte-Ruiz M., Torpdahl M., Veldman K., Ventola E., Zajac M. y Jernberg C.
 | National Veterinary Institute. |
| Public Health Agency of Sweden. | |
| Swedish National Food Agency. | |
 | Statens Serum Institut (SSI). |
| Department of Food Safety. Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health. National Institute of Health. | |
 | Ploufragan Plouzané Laboratory. Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de l´alimentation, de l´environnement et du travail (ANSES). |
| Wageningen Bioveterinary Research. | |
 | National Food Institute (DTU Food). Technical University of Denmark (DTU). |
 | Uppsala Universitet. |
 | National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Government of the Netherlands. |
 | Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). |
| National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI). | |
| Clinical Microbiology. Region Halland. | |
 | Servicio de Zoonosis de Transmisión Alimentaria y Resistencia a Antimicrobianos (ZTA). Centro de Vigilancia Sanitaria Veterinaria (VISAVET). Universidad Complutense (UCM). |
