Campylobacter jejuni in Cattle and Raw Milk in The Netherlands

A survey was done on the occurrence of Campylobacter jejuni in slaughtered cattle and raw milk from dairy farms in The Netherlands, In the first part of the survey, in which direct plating techniques were used, no C. jejuni was detected in any of 200 samples of caecal contents of cattle or in 200 samples of raw milk. A second series of investigations was done using a new enrichment procedure. This time C. jejuni was isolated from 11 of 200 caecal contents, but from none of 200 samples of milk. Further experiments showed that Campylobacter can survive in milk at 4°C for weeks, whether the milk was shaken with air (as occurs during the milking process) or not. Our investigations indicate that C. jejuni was not excreted with the milk. It can be concluded that cattle in The Netherlands do not play an important role in the epidemiology of C. jejuni .