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Food-producing animals as a source of Salmonella in humans in the European Union

Food, fish and agriculture Food safety Production animals Health and diseases
Thursday 10 Jul 14
Part of the occurrence of Salmonella in humans comes from food-producing animals. A PhD project at the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, estimates the proportion of infections attributable to the four food animal reservoirs: pigs, broilers, turkeys and laying hens.

To an unknown degree, human infections with Salmonella are caused by Salmonella being transferred from animals to humans – often through food. In his PhD project at the National Food Institute, Leonardo de Knegt presents a mathematical modelling approach for estimating the quantitative contribution of pigs, broilers, turkeys and laying hens to human salmonellosis.

Applicable in a more global perspective

In addition, the thesis presents an alternative approach based on expert elicitation, which can be used in countries with less availability of data on Salmonella infections.

Furthermore, the project has contributed to the groundwork for future attempts to prepare Salmonella source attribution estimates in a more global perspective.

Read more

Read Leonardo de Knegt’s PhD thesis: A multi-country approach for attributing human salmonellosis to animal reservoirs: Global perspectives and application of surveillance data from the European Union (pdf).