Improving food safety in live swine

Abstract Text: Swine can be colonized by a variety of foodborne pathogens that can be harmful to humans who consume contaminated pork products, or who are exposed to waste from swine facilities.  The most common foodborne pathogenic bacteria that are associated with swine and pork are Salmonella and Campylobacter. Illnesses in humans attributed to pork products have declined in recent years due to tremendous effort put forth by the industry, however the record is still not perfect.  While illnesses still occur, steps such as implementing on-farm biosecurity procedures, reducing exposure to pathogens during transport and lairage have reduced horizontal spread of these important pathogens in live swine.  The economic and public health significance of intervening to reduce pathogen incidence and transmission will be discussed along with methods under development and future research avenues.  Actual and theoretical interventions, such as segregated early weaning, group housing, social stresses, reducing transport stress, limiting lairage exposure, bacteriophage, colicins and sodium chlorate applications will be described.  While challenges indeed remain, work to reduce pathogen carriage in live swine holds promise to reduce human pathogen exposures and resultant illnesses.

Keywords: human pathogen exposure, foodborne pathogens, health