A survey of Campylobacter and other bacterial contaminants of pre-market chicken and retail poultry and meats, King County, Washington.

As part of a larger study to determine the flow of Campylobacter and Salmonella from food animals to humans during 1982-83, 1,936 swabs were collected for bacteriologic study from pre-market chickens, retail poultry, and other retail meats as well as from equipment and work surfaces used to process such foods. Of the 297 samples collected in a poultry processing plant, 56.6 per cent were positive for Campylobacter jejuni/coli (CJC), as were 23.1 per cent of the 862 retail chicken, and 17.2 per cent of the 29 retail game hen samples. CJC was found infrequently in retail turkey, pork, and beef samples. Contamination of retail and pre-market chicken with CJC appeared to increase as the week progressed, and in pre-market chicken, later in the day. Less than 5 per cent of the retail samples of poultry, beef, and pork were found to contain Yersinia or Salmonella. However, Salmonella was cultured from 14.8 per cent of the swabs taken from the processing plant with 68 per cent of 44 Salmonellas being isolated concurrently with CJC. Tetracycline resistance which was plasmid-mediated was the most common antibiotic resistance observed, and was carried by 23.8 per cent of all CJC isolates. Overall, 38.8 per cent of all CJC isolates were resistant to ampicillin, erythromycin, streptomycin, or tetracycline, either singly or in combination.