Risk based meat inspection or Carcass meat safety assurance system

Question 1

What are the 3 main elements of current meat inspection?

Answer 1

Pre-slaughter phase:
- Food chain information (FCI)
- Ante-mortem examination of animals
Post-mortem examination of meat (visual, palpation, incision)

Question 2

What are the 3 goals of meat inspection?

Answer 2

1. To protect public health from meat-borne hazards
2. To control both animal health and
3. welfare

Question 3

What are the features of food chain information?

Answer 3

1. Animal identification (movement, traceability)
2. Epidemiological intelligence (data from herd health plans, monitoring & surveillance, medicines and veterinary treatments)
3. Farm animal management and QA (welfare; housing and handling facilities; feed composition, storage and use; biosecurity)
4. Environment management

Question 4

Name 2 pathogens which have a low probability of occurrence but a high impact on public health

Answer 4

BSE
TSE

Question 5

Name a pathogen which has a high probability of occurrence and a high impact on public health

Answer 5

Salmonella

Question 6

Name the pathogens which have a high probability of occurrence and a low impact on public health

Answer 6

Campylobacter
Hydatid cysts
Fluke

Question 7

Which pathogens may not be detected at ante or postmortem inspection

Answer 7

BSE, TSE
Salmonella
Campylobacter
Toxoplasma

Question 8

Describe the need for modernisation in meat inspection

Answer 8

• Inability of macroscopic meat inspection to detect and control “invisible” biological hazards most important for public health
• The impracticality of laboratory examination of those hazards in/on each carcass individually
• The need for a new effective overall control system: risk-based, meat-chain orientated and comprehensive
• It is more a “meat safety assurance” system than meat inspection

Question 9

What are the 4 main parameters for ranking of meatborne hazards?

Answer 9

• Incidence: human disease
• Source attribution
• Prevalence
• Severity of human disease

Question 10

What are the 2 main meatborne biological hazards in bovine spp?

Answer 10

E.coli
Salmonella

Question 11

What are the 2 main meatborne biological hazards in bovine spp?

Answer 11

E.coli
Toxoplasma gondii

Question 12

What is the main meatborne biological hazard in porcine spp?

Answer 12

Salmonella

Question 13

What are the 2 main meatborne biological hazards in poultry spp?

Answer 13

Campylobacter
Salmonella

Question 14

What is the Carcass meat safety assurance framework?

Answer 14

A comprehensive, coordinated and risk-based carcass meat safety assurance system must incorporate several control strategies into a coherent whole

Question 15

When is the Carcass meat safety assurance framework possible?

Answer 15

• There is a risk manager who coordinates the whole system
• All participants in the system clearly know their responsibility, and
• There is an efficient flow of all relevant information forward and backward along the farm-to-chilled carcass chain between the participants

Question 16

What is the first prerequisite in the Carcass meat safety assurance framework?

Answer 16

The main participants in the meat chain are given clear and measurable targets and/or related criteria indicating what they should achieve in respect to specified hazards

Question 17

Name the overall 7 most important meat borne biological hazards

Answer 17

Campylobacter spp
E.coli
Human pathogenic stec
Salmonella enterica
Toxoplasma gondii
Yersinia
Trichinella

Question 18

What are the roles of microbiological targets?

Answer 18

• Meeting microbiological targets earlier in the food chain may be more effective in controlling such hazards
• The use of targets at different stages of production could lead to a decrease in the prevalence of certain pathogens along the food chain

Question 19

What are Harmonised epidemiological indicators (HEI)?

Answer 19

The prevalence, concentration or incidence of the hazard at a certain stage of the food chain that correlates to a human health risk caused by the hazard.

Question 20

What 3 types of data are provided by harmonised epidemiological indicators?

Answer 20

1. Data from structured and standardized auditing of farming and transport-lairage practices
2. Data from microbiological/parasitological testing of animals and carcasses (i.e. actual presence/absence of the hazards), and
3. Technical data from validation/verification of regimes used for antimicrobial and parasite-inactivation treatment of carcasses

Question 21

Which of the 7 important meat borne hazards can be controlled with official meat inspection?

Answer 21

Trichinella

Question 22

Which of the 7 important meat borne hazards has no reliable control option at present (freezing or heat treatment of meat for inactivation)?

Answer 22

Toxoplasma gondii