Suchergebnisse

Travel and migration are the major drivers of human brucellosis in Western Europe. The infection is usually transmitted through the consumption of unpasteurized milk or dairy products in or from endemic regions. Although eradicated from livestock in Germany and most Member States of the European Union, considerable numbers of domestic human brucellosis cases have been reported annually. The actual source of these autochthonous cases in non-endemic countries remains to be elucidated. We therefore evaluated the presence of Brucella spp. in 200 cheese samples originating from endemic countries which were sold at weekly markets, in supermarkets and by delis in Berlin (Germany) as well as online. The cheese samples included loose, non-labelled and pre-packed, labelled cheese of five types (brine, cream, soft, semi-hard and hard cheese), made from bovine, ovine and caprine milk. The cheese was mainly declared as raw milk cheese by the retailers. We screened for and confirmed the presence of Brucella-DNA in cheese using genus-specific quantitative real-time PCRs targeting IS711 and bcsp31, respectively. The molecular prevalence of Brucella was 20.5% (n = 41), but viable Brucellae could not be isolated from the positively tested samples using classical culture methods. The logistic regression model indicated that Brucella was significantly more often detected in late summer purchases (p = 0.036) as well as in cheese from Bulgaria, France, Greece and Turkey (p = 0.017). In contrast to the vendor information, essentially only three positive cheese samples were made from raw milk. Moreover, positive samples clustered at certain vendors which indicates large-scale illegal imports. In summary, Brucella in imported raw milk cheese seems to be still a challenge for food safety standards in the European Union. Uncontrolled import of dairy products from endemic regions might explain human Brucella infections acquired in non-endemic EU countries.

Trichinellosis is a debilitating disease in humans and is caused by the consumption of raw or undercooked meat of animals infected with the nematode larvae of the genus Trichinella. The most important sources of human infections worldwide are game meat and pork or pork products. In many countries, the prevention of human trichinellosis is based on the identification of infected animals by means of the artificial digestion of muscle samples from susceptible animal carcasses. There are several methods based on the digestion of meat but the magnetic stirrer method is considered the gold standard. This method allows the detection of Trichinella larvae by microscopy after the enzymatic digestion of muscle samples and subsequent filtration and sedimentation steps. Although this method does not require special and expensive equipment, internal controls cannot be used. Therefore, stringent quality management should be applied throughout the test. The aim of the present work is to provide detailed handling instructions and critical control points of the method to analysts, based on the experience of the European Union Reference Laboratory for Parasites and the National Reference Laboratory of Germany for Trichinella.

Leptospirosis is an occupational risk for military personnel and many cases have been reported worldwide. Rodents are the most important maintenance hosts for Leptospira spp. and may infect both animals and humans. To determine the occurrence and identity of pathogenic Leptospira spp. in rodent and shrew populations in German military camps in Afghanistan, we examined 751 animals (Mus musculus, Cricetulus migratorius, Meriones libycus, Rattus tanezumi, Crocidura cf. suaveolens, and Suncus etruscus) from four military camps in Northern Afghanistan from 2009–2012. Leptospiral DNA was found in 1.1% of the animals and only in Mus musculus. Partial secY sequencing identified Leptospira borgpetersenii and Leptospira kirschneri as infecting genomospecies. Multilocus sequence typing was successful in the L. borgpetersenii samples, which were identified as sequence type 155. The low prevalence we observed suggested that the exposure risk of military personnel to infectious Leptospira spp. in the region is low.