On average, slaughterhouse chickens were contaminated with thermotolerant Campylobacter 54 percent of the time, according to a recent poultry study in Chile. Two poultry slaughterhouses were included in the study. One had a 72 percent contamination rate, while campylobacter was found 36 percent of the time in the other.

“Our findings indicate that chilling process has a limited effect in the final products Campylobacter contamination because poultry enter the slaughter processing with high counts of contamination. This may represent a health risk to consumers, if proper cooking practices are not employed. The levels and frequencies of Campylobacter found during the processing of Chilean poultry appear to be similar to those reported elsewhere in the world,” BMC Microbiology quoted the researchers as saying.

A copy of the provisional report can be found here.