New health risk assessment model for hatcheries under federal jurisdiction.
Poultry products are as a significant contributor to human salmonellosis in Canada. To reduce the Salmonella contamination risk throughout the poultry production chain, scientists identified critical points for managing this threat. Those critical points are, as expected hatcheries, breeding flocks, feed mills, live haul, rearing farms and slaughter plants. Given that young chicks are very susceptible to colonization with Salmonella, and that carriage is often asymptomatic and life‐long, it is important to prevent the dissemination of this bacterium at the hatchery level.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is modernizing its risk‐based approach with a more efficient process. In Canada, hatcheries with an incubation capacity of 1,000 eggs or more fall under CFIA’s jurisdiction and therefore are within the scope of this initiative.
Three researchers from the CRIPA-FRQNT have collaborated with a pan-canadian team of experts, including scientists from three governmental agencies, two universities and veterinarian practitioners with hatchery expertise to develop this risk assessment model for hatcheries using a consistent, science‐based approach.
The first step was to identify and select food safety‐related risk factors. Then the experts took care to define criteria to assess those risk factors based on common practices used in Canadian hatcheries. As a result, the team generated a list of 29 risk factors; mostly from the scientific literature but it is worth mentioning that nine factors originated from the expert panel. These risk factors classify into three categories such as (see figure):
the inherent risk (the current risk level at the hatchery), it includes all aspects of a hatchery's operational practices, supply or equipment;
the mitigation risk (what to do to reduce adverse events), this includes quality control, sanitation requirements, or internal practices;
the compliance risk (the compliance of a hatchery with the preventive control plan and regulatory requirements developed in the mitigation assessment), it includes track records.
The forthcoming steps of the CFIA’s model development include the quantification of the assessment criteria based on their impact on the public health burden of Salmonella. This last step is crucial for the main goal of this new risk assessment model that aims to attribute a relative food safety risk to each Canadian hatchery under CFIA’s jurisdiction.
Source : Identification and selection of food safety-related risk factors to be included in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's Establishment-based Risk Assessment model for Hatcheries. Manon Racicot, Geneviève Comeau, Alexandre Tremblay, Sylvain Quessy, Teresa Cereno, Maude Charron‐Langlois, Daniel Venne, Ghislain Hébert, Jean‐Pierre Vaillancourt, Philippe Fravalo, Rachel Ouckama6, Darko Mitevski, Michele T. Guerin, Agnes Agunos, Leanne DeWinter, Angela Catford, Anna Mackay, Marie‐Lou Gaucher. Zoonoses Public Health 2020. PMID 31550078
