The European Commission is tackling salmonella poisoning as a number one priority in a new food safety crackdown launched yesterday.
The aim is to cut the 166,000 annual cases of the illness in the EU by bringing in new controls which will affect producers of breeding poultry, laying hens, broilers, turkeys and breeding pigs.
Salmonella can lurk in raw eggs, poultry, beef and other meat and dairy products and the Commission's proposals - if approved by EU governments - will tighten food safety legislation to prevent the spread of the infection through food.
Member-states will have to adopt national control programmes and impose pathogen reduction targets on producers, starting with breeding flocks of chicken from 2005, laying hens from 2006, broilers from 2007 and turkeys and breeding pigs from 2008.
Tighter control measures are also planned for other key diseases borne along the food chain, including E-coli and listeria.
Marketing restrictions are also planned from 2008 for table eggs from flocks suspected of, or confirmed as, harbouring salmonella, and poultry meat will have to comply with new microbiological criteria from 2009.
"The fact that many people suffer every year from food-borne illness, which can sometimes even prove fatal, does not appear to get major media attention," said the Food Safety Commissioner, Mr David Byrne.
"Salmonellosis is priority number one for us. Poultry products and eggs are generally recognised as being the primary source of food-borne salmonellosis," he said.
