The source attribution analysis revealed the prevalent role of poultry over cattle and wild birds in human campylobacteriosis cases in the Baltic States

Abstract

The reservoir and source of human campylobacteriosis is primarily considered to be poultry, but also other such as ruminants, pets and environmental sources are related with infection burden. Multilocus sequence typing is often used for Campylobacter epidemiological studies to determine potential sources of human infections. The collection of 420 Campylobacter jejuni isolates with assigned MLST genotype from poultry (n = 139), cattle (n = 48) and wild birds (n = 101) were used in source attribution analysis. Asymmetric island model with accurate and congruent self-attribution results, was used to determine potential sources of human C. jejuni infections (n = 132) in Baltic States. Source attribution analysis revealed that poultry (88.3%) is the main source of C. jejuni human infections followed by cattle and wild bird with 9.4% and 2.3%, respectively. Our findings demonstrated that clinical cases of C. jejuni infections in Baltic countries are mainly linked to poultry, but also to cattle and wild bird sources.