New Zealand's <em>Campylobacter</em> Strategy Is Working

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND — A strategy designed by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority and Poultry Industry Association to combat the country’s high rates of notified campylobacteriosis appears to be working, said New Zealand’s Food Safety Minister Lianne Dalziel.

There were 1,762 notified cases of this illness, which is caused by the pathogen Campylobacter, during the first quarter of 2008 ¯ the lowest number in the last 12 years.

Campylobacteriosis is the largest contributor to the economic costs of food borne diseases in New Zealand, accounting for more reported cases than any other reported gastro-intestinal illness. Ms. Dalziel is happy the figures have steadily gone down since November last year, compared to each of the previous five years.

"While everyone involved with this complex issue realizes that there is no one silver bullet to eradicate the problem and that there are many possible disease transmission routes, I am encouraged by how work is progressing," she said. "It is too early to fully attribute this downward trend to the ‘Campylobacter in Poultry’ strategy put in place by N.Z.F.S.A. and the poultry industry, but it looks as if all our strenuous efforts to address this public health problem are beginning to pay off."

Food safety authorities throughout the world are struggling with high incidences of the disease. Since campylobacterosis was made a New Zealand notifiable disease in 1980, the reported incidence rates continued to rise steadily within New Zealand, prompting N.Z.F.S.A., in close association with the poultry industry, to implement the Campylobacter in Poultry — Risk Management Strategy in 2006. The strategy is intended to assist N.Z.F.S.A. in its aim to reduce the number of human cases of food borne campylobacteriosis acquired in New Zealand by 50 percent within five years.

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