Campylobacter

What is it?
Campylobacter is an infectious illness which can be food or water borne. It is recognised initially by the symptoms. These can include severe abdominal pain, diarrhoea, fever, nausea and occasionally vomiting. These symptoms can last for up to 2 weeks.

How is it caused?
It is caused by the campylobacter bacteria entering the body through the mouth usually from unwashed hands and infected food or drink.

Possible routes of the infection are: -

  • drinking raw unpasteurised milk
  • eating undercooked poultry and poultry based foods
  • contact with streams, ponds and similar watercourses
  • drinking unchlorinated water
  • infection from pets, especially puppies and kittens and from farm animals and birds (watch out for birds pecking the tops on milk bottles left on the door step)

How is it spread?
Hands, kitchen surfaces and cooking utensils such as chopping boards and knives can become contaminated when preparing raw foods such as uncooked poultry. If not properly washed afterwards they can transfer bacteria onto other foods. If these foods are ones that do not require further cooking before being eaten (a process that would normally kill off bacteria) this could cause food poisoning.

What precautionary measures can I take?
Thorough hand washing is vital: -

  • before preparing or serving food or drink
  • after handling pets or their food bowls
  • after handling raw meat and poultry

Avoid swallowing water when participating in water sports.

Only drink mains or treated water and make sure that the water tank in your loft is covered to stop birds getting in.

Do not drink untreated (green top) milk and keep tops on delivered milk covered with yoghurt cartons to prevent birds pecking at them.

Cover open wounds or sores with a waterproof plaster.

Keep all perishable foods in a fridge separating raw meat from other foods.

Only take food out of the fridge just before use.

Keep the fridge temperature below 5°C.

Ensure frozen foods are properly thawed before cooking.

Ensure foods are cooked thoroughly. Barbecues can be a particular problem.

Keep kitchen surfaces and utensils clean. Wash chopping boards and knives with a detergent and sanitiser.

Don’t let pets or other animals in the kitchen when preparing food. Do not wash pets’ food bowls with the family dishes.

Don’t buy or eat food past its ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ date.

Don’t reheat food more than once.

Always follow the instructions on cooking/reheating microwave and ready meals carefully to ensure that the food is evenly heated throughout.

Will I need treatment?
No treatment is usually given for campylobacter infections. It is simply a case of letting the body’s natural defences deal with the infection. In some cases antibiotics may be prescribed but such treatments can have the disadvantage of extending the time during which the patient carries and can pass on the germ.

Do I need to submit specimens?
In some cases it may be necessary to collect specimens of faeces for analysis to confirm the presence of a pathogenic organism. The results can help in determining the possible source of an infection.

Where it is felt necessary to submit a faecal sample an Environmental Health Officer will contact you. You will be given a special container and full instructions on collecting a sample. The sample will be sent to the laboratory for analysis and you will be advised of the outcome.

Page last updated on 25 November 2011