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Brucella in fish
Project
Project code: BfR-BIOS-08-1322-578
Contract period: 01.03.2014
- 31.12.2014
Purpose of research: Applied research
Brucellosis is one of the world’s most common bacterial zoonosis. The source of naturally acquired brucellosis in humans is mostly found in animal reservoirs, and indirect transmission through animal food products remains the highest overall public health risk. During the last two decades, two marine mammal brucellae have been included as members of the genus Brucella: Brucella ceti and Brucella pinnipedialis. There have been three reports related to the zoonotic importance of marine mammal brucellae, all of which were caused by the same genotype, so far only being isolated from California sea lion and bottlenose dolphin. Knowing that terrestrial (bovine and ovine/caprine) brucellosis is most often transferred to humans through the food chain and acknowledging the fact that the marine zoonotic incidents reported no contact with marine mammals, but rather raw fish/bait, an extended ecological range of B. pinnipedialis and B. ceti can be expected. This project aims at defining the ability of marine mammal brucellae to survive extracellulary in the marine environment and studying fish as a possible host. The stomach content of pinnipeds will be investigated because their diet comprises a lot of common food fishes in Germany, e.g. cod, herring, and redfish. Outbreak of disease in fish has for other intracellular bacterial diseases been shown to depend upon ambient water temperatures. In light of present future predictions of climate change, the influence of increased water temperature on survival of the bacterium will also be analyzed.
Section overview
Subjects
- Food microbiology
- Toxicology
- Climate Change
