Mapping the surveillance activities for food-hazards across Europe

Aim: MATRIX is part of the One Health European Joint Programme aiming at the implementation of One Health Surveillance (OHS), through the strengthening of the whole process of surveillance, and the implementation of guidelines for OHS improvement. The Project relies on a problem-based approach and focuses on four hazard-tracks: Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and an emerging threat. As Work Package 2, a mapping of the surveillance chain across all sectors for each hazard-track has been performed from late 2020 to early 2021. Methods: Per each hazard-track, including Hepatitis E selected as the emerging pathogen of interest, a specific food chain was selected to explore in detail the different realities. Twelve online questionnaires were implemented based on the ”farm to fork” approach for the three sectors (animal health, food safety and public health) and each hazard-food chain combination. Surveillance activities in place were investigated in at least two countries for each combination. Results: Salmonella was investigated in humans and pork meat food chain; Listeria in humans and dairy products; Campylobacter in humans and poultry meat; Hepatitis E, in humans and wild boar meat. Answers were categorized in order to be graphically displayed, in: events, actors, data, metadata, event producing data, identified data sources, and sharing potential. Answers of these categories represent the start to identificate cross-sectorial linkages across surveillance chains. Conclusions: The mapping of surveillance activities in place was the first step in the identification of best-practices for multisectorial collaboration. The following phase is the identification of outputs that could be shared for One Health oriented decision-making.