CONSUMING CHICKEN, lettuce and eating takeaways are among the risk factors for contracting the commonest form of gastroenteritis caused by a bacterium, a new All-Ireland study has found. Campylobacter, the most common form of bacterial gastrointestinal disease in both the Republic and Northern Ireland, accounts for about two-thirds of all cases of acute gastroenteritis.
Researchers from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) in Dublin and the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre in Belfast, as well as public health colleagues from the Republic and Northern Ireland examined almost 200 cases of campylobacter gastroenteritis in the first comprehensive study of the disease here.
Apart from eating chicken and lettuce, they identified a number of other risk factors for campylobacter infection. Being in contact with sheep, having a peptic ulcer, suffering with a hiatus hernia (a condition where stomach acid travels back up the gullet) and having lower bowel problems were all associated with the bacterial infection.
Undercooked chicken was a particular culprit, which the authors said was an important finding given that more than 70 per cent of Irish people eat chicken.
The study, published in Eurosurveillance, the journal of the European Centre for Disease Control, focused on isolated cases of campylobacter rather than large outbreaks of infection. Unlike salmonella and other bugs that cause gastroenteritis, campylobacter tends not to spread out into the community.
In an explanation for the link with hiatus hernia and peptic ulcer, the authors noted: “many of the patients who suffer from these gastrointestinal diseases may be receiving long-term treatment with acid suppressants . . . therefore making the stomach a much less hostile environment for bacteria”.
According to Dr Paul McKeown, specialist in public health medicine at the HPSC and one of the study authors, the link to sheep may be a proxy for those who spend time outdoors and who come into contact with animal faeces.
“Much campylobacter is the result of environmental contamination. People need to be careful about cleaning their hands after they have been in the garden, handling pets or putting out the rubbish as well as before and after food preparation,” he told The Irish Times.
The study also identified a number of factors that protected people from getting campylobacter. Drinking water from a mains supply was protective as was eating beef and salad vegetables other than lettuce.
In terms of symptoms experienced by the 197 people studied, 99 per cent developed diarrhoea. Some nine in 10 victims had abdominal pain, while two- thirds had a fever. Almost one in five victims required hospital admission.
“The findings of the study highlight the need for an improved and more efficient approach to basic food hygiene measures to prevent campylobacteriosis and other infectious gastrointestinal illness in the community,” the authors concluded.