29.06.2017
Campylobacter continues to be the most common foodborne pathogen in Denmark with 4,677 cases in 2016. This is an increase compared to the previous year, but it is not possible to determine if the reason is due to the changes in the reporting system, changes in the diagnostic practice as changes in the analytical methods are being introduced or a true increase in number of cases. In 2016, there were three foodborne outbreaks caused by Campylobacter; two outbreaks with a few cases each and one outbreak due to imported duck meat caused 103 cases.
A total of 1,074 human cases of salmonellosis were reported in 2016, which is an increase compared to 2015 with only 925 human cases, but still lower than the previous years. S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium including monophasic strains continue to be the most common serovars found humans with an incidence of 4.3/100,000 inhabitants and 5.6/100,000, respectively. Both in humans and several animal and food sources the monophasic strains of S. Typhimurium was more common than the genuine S. Typhimurium.
In animals, S. Enteritidis was only reported from imported broiler meat and duck meat. Whereas S. Typhimurium including the monophasic strains were reported from several sources (Danish pigs and pork, broilers, layers and duck, and imported pork and duck meat). The model behind the Salmonella source account links the number of human salmonellosis cases caused by different Salmonella subtypes to specific food and animal reservoirs. In 2016, Danish produced pork was estimated to be the most important food source of human salmonellosis (approximately 64 cases). This finding is in line with observations from 2012-2014, but an increase from last year, where imported pork was the most important food source. The increase in cases attributed to Danish produced pork can partly be explained by an outbreak related to this specific food source comprising 16 cases. The second most important source was estimated to be imported broiler meat (~43 cases) followed by imported pork (~40 cases). Further, around 22 cases were attributed to Danish produced table eggs in 2016, which is in contrast to last year where no cases were attributed to table eggs for the first time since the source account model has been applied. In total, 49 foodborne outbreaks were reported in 2016, with a total of 1,825 registered cases of which 234 were confirmed in the laboratory. This is an increase compared to 2015, but the second lowest number of outbreaks reported since the introduction of the central registration of outbreaks in the end of 2005.
The report is also available at: www.food.dtu.dk