General outbreaks of infectious intestinal disease linked with poultry, England and Wales, 1992-1999

Abstract

Between 1992 and 1999, 1426 foodborne general outbreaks of infectious intestinal disease (IID) were reported to the Public Health Laboratory Service Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre. A fifth were associated with the consumption of poultry. Chicken was implicated in almost three quarters of these outbreaks, turkey in over a fifth and duck in 2% of outbreaks. The organisms most frequently reported were Salmonella (30% of outbreaks), Clostridium perfringens (21%) and Campylobacter (6%). Over 7000 people were affected, with 258 hospital admissions and 17 deaths. During the summer, outbreaks were mainly of salmonellosis and attributed to the consumption of chicken. In December, C. perfringens and turkey were the organism and vehicle most often implicated. Most outbreaks occurred on commercial catering premises (56%) or in private houses (21%). The highlight of this surveillance period was the fall in outbreaks of salmonellosis linked with poultry products, probably due, at least in part, to the vaccination of poultry flocks.