Campylobacteriosis is food poisoning and its cause is bacteria Campylobacter. In USA this is one of the most common food poisoning. Poisoning with Campylobacter is more common during the summer months in children and young adults. Men get sick more than women.
The most common source of poisoning are contaminated groceries that come from an infected animal – most likely from contaminated not enough heat-treated chicken or turkey meat. We could also get infected if we drink unpasteurized or unboiled milk. Eggs can also be contaminated. To the secondary food infection can come over working surfaces, dirty hands (the patient or the carrier). We can also get infected through water or by contact (from person to person – most common in little children) or if we get in contact with dog cat or other pet animal feces.
After incubation of two to five days the symptoms include diarrhea, cramps and pain in the abdomen, and sometimes increased temperature, nausea and vomiting. The disease usually lasts around one week. In some people, the disease can go unnoticed, without symptoms, and in patients with failing function of the immune system, campylobacteriosis can be a life threatening condition.
Diagnosis is made based on anamnesis and patient examination, and with finding the causer in the stool.
In treatment it is important to prevent dehydration by taking enough amounts of fluids – water, non-sweetened tea or rehydration fluid. Most of the diseased get better in two to five days, even though recovery can sometimes last up to ten days. Complications like reactive artritis or Guillain-Barr syndrome can rarely occur. In severe cases treatment with antibiotics might be needed.
Campylobacteriosis can be prevented if we handle food in the right manner. That means that when we buy meat, especially poultry and fish, we should put them in separate bags, separately from other groceries. After the shopping it is important to put the groceries in the fridge as soon as possible.
Washing your hands before preparing and consuming the food is one of the basic and most important measure for preventing food poisoning. Hands, dishes and kitchen surfaces need to be washed with hot water and soap after coming into contact with raw meat. It is particularly important to wash your hands carefully after changing a child’s diaper or cleaning the feces of a pet.
A very important prevention measure is also good heat treatment of food on high enough temperature (80 ° C), especially of meat and eggs, while in nutrition you should avoid eggs that have not been heat-treated or processed enough (in cake recipes – cream cakes, creams with raw eggs, home made mayonnaise or soft boiled eggs), and also meat that hasn’t been heat-treated enough (breaded chicken on light fire, minced meat) and food that stays long out of the fridge or that has been heated several times.