Establishment of serological herd profiles for zoonoses and production diseases in pigs by “meat juice multi-serology”

Detection of Toxoplasma gondii in free-range, organic pigs in Italy using serological and molecular methods

“…Meat juice serology has proven to be an excellent method for detection of T. gondii infection at slaughter in pigs and has been confirmed to correlate well with serum serology (Basso et al 2013;Meemken et al 2014). In the present study, all but one animal was positive (95.2%).…”

Transmission dynamics of foodborne parasites in pork (pig and wild boar)

“…Serological tests include the dye test (DT), indirect immunofluorescent antibody test (IFA), direct agglutination test (DAT), indirect haemagglutination test (IHA), latex agglutination test (LAT), and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The process can be fully automated and has been validated for the detection of Toxoplasma-specific antibodies in meat juice (e.g., Meemken and Blaha, 2011), which, used in a multi serology test, can be used to categorize pig herds for risk-based meat inspection (Meemken et al, 2014). IFA (Munday and Corbould, 1971), which is safer and simple, is commonly used in animals.…”

Components of control for foodborne parasites and their application in the food production chain

“…Recent attention in the EU has focused on the establishment of serological herd profiles and risk categorization for a number of zoonotic and production diseases of livestock, including Toxoplasma, to enable risk categorization and risk-based decisions required by European food safety regulations (Meemken et al, 2014). This will hopefully pave the way for other countries to adopt a similar approach.…”

“…Prevalence estimates for human infection with these ubiquitous coccidia are further compromised by underreporting and the benign or nonspecific nature of the clinical manifestations of most infections. Establishing serological herd profiles for Toxoplasma in swine and other species of concern will also enable the risk categorization and risk-based decisions necessary for targeted interventions to improve food safety (Meemken et al, 2014). Serological monitoring of food animals is further hindered by a lack of general agreement among the tests to be used, of availability of reference sera and other materials, and of laboratory certification programs (Kijlstra and Jongert, 2008).…”