Characterization of the Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium difficile hazards in the bovine, pig and poultry sectors in slaughterhouses – ClostAbat

Clostridium perfringens and Clostridioides difficile are major pathogenic bacteria involved in human infections. C. perfringens is also one of the bacterial hazards identified in the Guides to Good Hygiene Practices and of application of HACCP principles in the slaughtering and cutting of bovine, pig and poultry sectors. As animals are healthy carriers of both species in their digestive tract, animal meats are privileged targets to explain the occurrence of toxic episodes involving these pathogens. Without questioning the adequacy and relevance of the control measures implemented, little or no data are currently available in France on the importance of these two hazards in slaughterhouses and cutting plants.

The ClostAbat project brings together academic partners and technical institutes with a wide range of expertise in food sciences and human clinical practice to develop knowledge and decision support tools to enable the sectors to have objective information on the importance of these hazards in slaughterhouses/cutting plants.

This project will allow:
i) to assess the contamination of the three meat sectors with regards to C. perfringens and C. difficile hazards and to consider the correlation between the occurrence of the digestive carriage at the slaughterhouse, contamination of carcasses, meat cuts and the production environment, as well as the bacterial profile within each slaughterhouse;
ii) to determine the pathogenic potential of the isolated strains for humans;
iii) to identify epidemiological markers allowing the isolates traceability according to the animal sectors;
iv) to define their persistence in slaughterhouse and the potential correlation between their presence and the abundance of other bacterial taxa in surface populations;
v) to determine the relative importance of the different transmission routes (animal or environmental) and their possible implication in infectious diseases in humans;
vi) to transfer the methodologies used for data processing to the technical institutes for the characterization and monitoring of the two pathogens in the different meat sectors;
vii) to set up recommendations by drafting guidelines describing strategies to be carried out by operators in order to efficiently reduce their involvement in contamination and their impact on Public Health;
viii) to propose an alternative exploratory strategy for the management of these hazards by LED light treatment and to assess its impact on meat quality.

The project has 5 Work Packages (WP): the WP1 concerns the organization of the sample collection in the slaughterhouses according to the specificities of each sector, the WP2 aims at determining the contamination frequencies of the meat sectors with regard to the hazards C. perfringens and C. difficile, the WP3 aims to determine the pathogenic potential of the isolated strains for humans, the WP4 aims to identify the relative importance of the sectors with respect to the two hazards and the WP5 aims to investigate the possibility of using LED combined with relative humidity/temperature to destroy the spores of C. perfringens and C. difficile.

Thus, the meat sectors’ operators will be better able to justify the adequacy and relevance of the control measures implemented with regard to the C. perfringens and C. difficile hazards, and, if necessary, to re-examine them and disseminate selected prevention practices.