Occurrence of Campylobacter on carcasses of slaughtered animals between 2009 and 2013

A total of 2668 swabs from poultry (n = 2166), pig (n = 311), and cattle (n = 191) carcasses were collected in slaughterhouses all over Poland and tested for the presence of Campylobacter. It was found that 1319 (49.4%) of them were contaminated with these bacteria. The percentages of the positive samples were different in each year of the study and the highest proportion of Campylobacter contaminated samples occurred in 2009, when 64.1% of investigated carcasses were positive. On the other hand, the lowest prevalence of Campylobacter was observed in 2013, in the last year of the survey. In all kind of carcass samples both C. jejuni and C. coli were identified, although the pork meat was more contaminated with C. coli (75.3% of positive samples) than with C. jejuni (24.7%), whereas poultry was nearly equally positive for C. jejuni and C. coli (50.6% and 49.4% respectively). The analysis of seasonal contamination of the carcasses revealed that more positive results were found during the second half of year than between January and June. The prevalence of Campylobacter showed that in all provinces, except one (Pomorskie), the mean percentage of the positive samples was above 40%. The most contaminated samples were identified in Lubelskie (69.3%) and Zachodniopomorskie (66.3%) regions. The obtained results showed that slaughtered animals in Poland, especially broilers, were often contaminated with Campylobacter, either C. jejuni or C. coli.