Skip navigation
Food Standards Agency
Friday 3 July 2009
Safer food better business banner
AZ-Directory
What's New
M01042: Survey for Trichinella in wildlife
Wednesday 1 November 2006
This project will collect fox carcasses from around the United Kingdom for Trichinella testing as an indicator of the risk of infection in pigs (2005-2008).
Study Duration
: November 2005 to October 2008
Contractor
: Central Science Laboratory (CSL)
Background
-
Meat of domestic swine, wild boar, horses and other animal species may be infested with nematodes of the genus Trichinella.
Consumption of meat infested with Trichinella can cause serious disease in humans.
-
EC regulation 2075/2005 states that pig holdings can be declared Trichinella free if a surveillance programme of wildlife susceptible to Trichinella is in existence and prevalence in the indicator wildlife species is below 0.5%.
-
This survey will add to existing survey data carried out by CSL (2000-2005).
Research Approach
-
Trichinella testing in foxes, as an indicator wildlife species, will be undertaken in Great Britain.
Approximately 3000 foxes will be collected from around Great Britain (including data from existing surveys) and subject to post-mortem removal of relevant tissues for analysis.
-
Disease awareness will be maintained by carrying out rolling yearly surveys from November 2006.
-
The practicality of examining other wildlife species as an indicator of Trichinella infection will also be assessed.
Find out what our other sites have to offer
Change Text Only Settings
Graphic version of this page