Surveillance for Trichinella infection in U.S. pigs raised under controlled management documents negligible risk for public health

• Published in: Food and waterborne parasitology Vol. 36; p. e00238
• Main Authors: Gamble, H. Ray, Hill, Dolores E., Fournet, Valsin, Adams, Brandon, Hawkins-Cooper, Diane, Fredericks, Jorrell, Aquino, Jovan, Agu, Sonia, Chehab, Nadya, Ankrah, Ako, Antognoli, Maria C., Remmenga, Marta D., Kramer, Scott, Gustafson, Lori, Rosenthal, Benjamin M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Inc 01.09.2024; Elsevier
• Subjects: Controlled management; Negligible risk; Surveillance; Trichinella; Controlled management; Surveillance; Trichinella; Negligible risk
• ISSN: 2405-6766; 2405-6766
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fawpar.2024.e00238

Biosecurity measures preventing exposure of pigs to rodents, wildlife, and contaminated feed or waste products reduce the risk of zoonotic Trichinella infection in pork. To understand the benefits of such measures in the United States, we conducted the first comprehensive survey of pigs produced under the Pork Quality Assurance Plus production standard, surveying 3,208,643 pork samples from twelve processing locations tested over a period of 54 months. We detected no Trichinella sp. positives in any of these pork samples, providing a 95% confidence in a Trichinella sp. prevalence of <1 in 1,000,000 for the processors represented by the study. These results are consistent with international guidelines for having a negligible risk to public health. Results obtained here should generalize to all PQA+ sources, as Trichinella sp. exposure risk is based on production guidelines that extend to the larger PQA+ population.