ABSTRACT
This chapter provides state-of-the-art overviews on foodborne diseases caused by Campylobacter in relation to their etiology, biology, epidemiology, clinical presentation, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Campylobacter species are among the most common causes of bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide. This chapter focuses on the zoonotic and foodborne campylobacters that cause human illness, and reviewed and described are general phenotypic traits of each genus, clinical aspects, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Species within the Campylobacter genus can be grouped according to association with different host environments and propensity to cause disease in animal and human hosts. Campylobacter is widely distributed in the environment, where they are asymptomatically carried and shed into the environment by domestic and wild animals and birds, particularly poultry. The immunological responses to Campylobacter in humans are still not well understood, where the lack of an animal model, with similar characteristics of human disease, has made mechanistic studies of the immune response to Campylobacter difficult.
