Mapping sporadic infectious disease in Wales Heather Lewis Head of Incidents Branch Food Standards Agency
Mapping sporadic infectious disease in Wales Why did I initiate the project? Current statistics FSA strategy to reduce food poisoning Incident Prevention Target interventions Potentially beneficial to FSA/WAG/PHW/LA s
Mapping sporadic infectious disease in Wales How did I initiate the project? Contact with the NPHS outline agreement Project Initiation Document Confidentiality / Permissions Getting the data Data cleaning Mapping the data
Mapping sporadic infectious disease in Wales Issues with the data Not all Campylobacter s & Salmonella s are food borne Someone could live in one area but have eaten what made them ill in another Cannot remove travel acquired infection
Mapping sporadic infectious The results disease in Wales Incidence rates of Salmonella & Campylobacter in Wales by MSOA Visual representations of the incidence rates of Salmonella & Campylobacter As in MSOA can drill down to LA level Would be able to give a LA a representation of the incidence within their area
Mapping sporadic infectious Next Steps disease in Wales Get missing data & input to incidence rates & maps Analysis of determinants such as deprivation, rurality, eating habits to assess correlations Consider reporting levels Draft a Project Report Disseminate findings
Mapping sporadic infectious disease in Wales Next steps contd Consider other organisms Consider the accuracy of laboratory data compared to the LA submitted data Progress as LA s want us to
Mapping sporadic infectious disease in Wales Thank you for listening Any questions?
Nuclear Food
Sources of Radioactivity Natural Cosmic Terrestrial Artificial Power stations Military Industry
Pathways Deposition & uptake Deposition Inhalation & Irradiation Ingestion Ingestion Production
Radiological surveillance To ensure food safety Public reassurance Check against statutory limits and targets Dose assessments Look for long-term trends in radioactivity in food Look for early signs of changes Test predictive models Articles 35 and 36 (Euratom Treaty)
Surveillance programme One programme covering both aquatic & terrestrial environments Over 5,500 samples of foods from 26 sites, over 10,000 analyses or measurements undertaken by accredited laboratories 80% recouped from industry under Environment Agency legislation Totally independent of industry All calculated doses are below limits
Sample locations
Saturday April 26 th 1986
Nuclear cloud Radionuclide Activity (Bq) Caesium 134 19 10 15 Caesium 137 38 10 15 Iodine 131 260 10 15 Ruthenium 106 58 10 15 Strontium 90 12 10 15 Xenon 133 1700 10 15 3-4% of total radioactivity contained within the reactor
Path over the UK (from Smith & Clark (1989))
Deposition Nuclear cloud met band of rain on its second pass over Britain Significant deposition of radioactivity in Northern Ireland, Welsh high ground, Northwest England and Scotland Primary deposits were Iodine-131 and Caseium-137 I-131 has half life of 8 days so dissipated quickly Cs-137 has half life of 30 years
(from Smith & Clark (1989))
Fixation Cs-137 passes easily into plants from peaty, acidic soils High mineral soils bind Cs-137 preventing it from entering food chain Soils in North Wales, Cumbria, Central and Western Scotland have high organic matter content (peaty)
UK response Nationwide monitoring programme MaFF, WOAD, SOAD, DANI Initially focussed on milk before extending to crops and livestock Concentrated in areas of high deposition
The results
Restrictions FEPA Order Extent based on rainfall
Restrictions Sale, movement and slaughter of sheep from within defined area England Wales Scotland N Ireland Farms 1,670 5,100 2,900 122 Sheep 867,000 2,000,000 1,358,000 53,000
Monitoring Live monitoring of all sheep within restricted area Sheep below 1,000Bq/kg exempted from restrictions Mark and release scheme Farmer wanting to move sheep must have them all live monitored Failing sheep painted to identify them as ineligible for slaughter Painted sheep can be moved off restricted areas, but must not be sold to slaughter nor returned to the restricted areas for a minimum of three months After this period they are eligible for slaughter Red paint used for temporary movements
De-restriction Continuous programme for assessing need of restrictions Whole flocks live monitored during summer Currently, farms require two consecutive years without failures to be eligible Restricted are re-defined Currently 330 farms remain under restriction in Gwynedd and Conwy Difficulties in identifying suitable areas
Future Half life of Cs-137 is approx 30 years, therefore, contamination will persist for some time Efficacy and propriety Data Technology & Monitoring Risk assessment Policy De-restriction
Adios Hef hefin.davies@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk 029 2067 8928 http://www.food.gov.uk/science/ surveillance/radiosurv