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Until recently New Zealand had one of the highest rates of human campylobacteriosis reported by industrialized countries. Since the introduction of a range of control measures in the poultry production chain a reduction in human cases of around 50% has been observed nationwide. To inform risk managers a combination of spatial, temporal and molecular tools - including minimum spanning trees, risk surfaces, rarefaction analysis and dynamic source attribution modelling - was used in this study to formally evaluate the reduction in disease risk that occurred after the implementation of control measures in the poultry industry. Utilizing data from a sentinel surveillance site in the Manawatu region of New Zealand, our analyses demonstrated a reduction in disease risk attributable to a reduction in the number of poultry-associated campylobacteriosis cases. Before the implementation of interventions poultry-associated cases were more prevalent in urban than rural areas, whereas for ruminant-associated cases the reverse was evident. In addition to the overall reduction in prevalence, this study also showed a stronger intervention effect in urban areas where poultry sources were more dominant. Overall a combination of molecular and spatial tools has provided evidence that the interventions aimed at reducing Campylobacter contamination of poultry were successful in reducing poultry-associated disease and this will inform the development of future control strategies.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.prevetmed.2011.07.011

Type

Journal article

Journal

Preventive veterinary medicine

Publication Date

12/2011

Volume

102

Pages

242 - 253

Addresses

mEpiLab, Hopkirk Research Institute, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand. petra@epi-interactive.com

Keywords

Animals, Poultry, Humans, Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter Infections, Poultry Diseases, Bacterial Typing Techniques, Sentinel Surveillance, Bayes Theorem, Risk Assessment, Genotype, Models, Biological, Rural Population, Urban Population, New Zealand, Molecular Epidemiology, Multilocus Sequence Typing