Vehicles of Campylobacter jejuni

Campylobacter jejuni was first isolated from human diarrhoea stools in 1971. Since then it has continually gained recognition as a disease causing organism in humans.

It was then recognised to be a cause of food poisoning in humans and it is now the most commonly reported cause of food-borne infection, surpassing even the the Salmonella species.

Foods implicated as vehicle of outbreaks include raw milk, raw beef, clams and cakes. Untreated surface water used in municipal water supplies has been responsible for large outbreaks of Campylobacter enteritis including thousands of individuals.

Interestingly, mushrooms have been epidemiologically linked to campylobacter infections and C. jejuni has been isolated from 1.5% of fresh, retail mushrooms obtained from the Midwest US.

The first documented outbreak in the United States occurred in 1976 in New York State with serovar 0:8 as the responsible strain and chocolate milk prepared by adding chocolate syrup to previously pasteurised milk was the vehicle food.
Vehicles of Campylobacter jejuni