The Facts about Campylobacter jejuni:
Where can you find it?
You can find it in animals such as chickens (poultry), birds, cattle and household pets including dogs and cats.
What are the suspecting symptoms?
The suspecting symptoms are diarrhea (which may contain blood or mucus), fever, stomach cramps, nausea and vomiting.
How can you catch it?
After the bacteria are taken in by mouth, it usually takes between two and five days before you become ill. To trace the cause of the illness, it is necessary to know where you were and what you ate and drank in the week before you became ill.
Prevention?
The single most important step especially poultry, and avoid cross-contamination via cutting boards and utensils of raw foods such as fresh produce. Consuming unpasteurized dairy products such as milk and cheese is a known risk factor for Campylobacter infection and should be avoided to reduce the risk of exposure to foodborne pathogens.
The Laboratory:
What does it look like?
Campylobacter jejuni is a faint gram negative rod that is curved or seagull shaped with polar flagella.
Presumptive ID?
If Campylobacter is suspected, it is grown on CAMPY agar in a microaerophilic environment at 42oC. It is oxidase and catalase positive and under a wet prep, it shows darting motility.
Confirmatory ID?
For confirmation, a hippurate hydrolysis test will be positive for Campylobacter jejuni. To separate Campylobacter and Helicobacter, a urease test is performed which will be negative for Campylobacter. To speciate Campylobacter jejuni, it will be resistant to Cephalothin and sensitive to Nalidixic acid.
My Fun Memory Clue! --> Hope it helps!!!
At Camp jejuni, we will see purple hippos and pink seagulls darting into the foamy sea.Funny song about bacteria and preventing some food-borne illnesses
Your mentioning of cutting boards in this post reminded of my previous microbiology teacher at Wallace State. I remember her telling our class about people using wooden cutting boards for their raw meats are more likely to get some type of infection. She said that the juices from the meat can get down into the cracks of the board. When you wash the board, you only wash the surface of it. Therefore, the bacteria stays in the board and you think it's clean. She concluded with, "Please, please, please throw away your wooden cutting boards!"
ReplyDeleteTo me Campylobacter sp. is one of the scariest bacteria because it is so easy to come in contact with. Mrs. Jeff said in class that something like 70% of raw chicken we buy in grocery stores contains Campylobacter. I am pretty sure that the reason why the chicken i cook now is a little overcooked is because of the lecture about Campylobacter sp.
ReplyDeleteYour post was an easy and comprehensive review of Campylobacter sp. Thank you.
I agree that Campylobacter is quite scary due to the fact that the percentage of infection by camplylobacter doesn't have any significant decrease even in organic and other chicken of the like. Your review was short and to the point and I really enjoyed it. You also have a knack for titling your posts, they act as attention catchers. Oh, and now I will be getting rid of my wooden utensils because even though I don't have a wooden cutting board, I realized that I do use a wooden handled brush for applying barbeque sauce to raw chicken, yuck!
ReplyDeleteI mostly use plastic utensils around my house, but I do have some wooden ones. Yuck!!! But wouldn't most of the household items carry some bacteria that are not healthy for us?
ReplyDeleteI like the way you organized your post. It is very clear and short. It gives me a good generalized overview on Campylobacter. Also, thank you for sharing your memory clue with us.