title: Evidence from the UK Zoonoses Action Plan in favour of localised anomalies of Salmonella infection on United Kingdom pig farms.
abstract: Salmonella spp. are important food-borne pathogens. Abattoir studies demonstrated that almost a quarter of British finisher pigs might carry Salmonella, which led to the introduction by the British Pig Executive of their Zoonoses Action Plan (ZAP) to monitor the Salmonella status of United Kingdom pig farms by testing meat juice samples using an ELISA system. We used the K-function and approaches from the field of geostatistics to study routine data from ZAP. We demonstrated that there is statistical evidence that geographically localized anomalies of Salmonella infection were present in one of three regions studied. The physical mechanisms underlying this structure remain unclear: spatial structure might be present as a result of shared spatially structured (second-order) or non-spatially structured (first-order) risk factors, transmission processes, or a combination of both. We have demonstrated a way to use routinely collected surveillance data to enhance the knowledge of spatial disease epidemiology.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Zoonosis Research, Leahurst, University of Liverpool, Liverpool CH64 7TE, UK. h.e.clough@liv.ac.uk
authors.forename: Helen E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Clough
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Fenton
authors.forename: Nigel P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: French
authors.forename: Alexander J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Alasdair J C
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Cook
mesh_terms: D000003:Abattoirs; D000818:Animals; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000662:veterinary; D005122:Exudates and Transudates / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012478:Salmonella Food Poisoning / Q000517:prevention & control; D012481:Salmonella Infections, Animal / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission*; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance / Q000662:veterinary; D013029:Space-Time Clustering; D013552:Swine; D013553:Swine Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission*; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D015047:Zoonoses