Public Health Hazards: B. Control of Biological Meat-Borne Hazards

Abstract

© 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved. To improve public health protection via safer meat, a risk-based, comprehensive and coordinated carcass meat safety assurance system targeting the most relevant hazards at the slaughterhouse level has to be developed and implemented in the European Union (EU). This chapter discusses the philosophy of and generic framework for such a system and its main element. There are a large number of public health hazards associated with slaughtered animals and their carcass meat in slaughterhouses that may pose public health risk. To identify the most relevant meat-borne hazards to be targeted by the slaughterhouse meat safety assurance system, several aspects need to be carefully considered for each hazard and combined in an appropriate way. A comprehensive, coordinated and risk-based carcass meat safety assurance system must incorporate several control strategies into a coherent whole.