Prevalence of campylobacters in chicken flocks during the summer of 1999 in Finland

In order to determine the prevalence of campylobacter positive broiler flocks in Finland, every flock from all three major slaughterhouses was studied during the period from 1 May to 30 September 1999. Caecal samples were taken in the slaughterhouses from five birds per flock. A total of 1132 broiler flocks were tested and 33 (2.9%) of those were campylobacter positive. Thirty-one isolates were C. jejuni and two isolates were C. coli. Isolates were serotyped for heat-stable antigens (Penner) and genotyped with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The most common serotypes were serotypes 6, 7, 12 and 4-complex. Together with SmaI and KpnI patterns there were 18 different PFGE genotypes. Simultaneous monitoring of chicken flocks and typing of the isolates produced data which can be used to study the epidemiology of campylobacters in chicken as well as their role in human infections.