PATH SAFE

Overview

The Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and Environment (PATH-SAFE) programme is a £19.2m Shared Outcomes Fund (SOF) research programme which aims to develop a national surveillance network, using the latest DNA-sequencing technology and environmental sampling to improve the detection, and tracking of foodborne human pathogens and AMR through the whole agri-food system from farm-to-fork. The heart of this ‘virtual’ network will be a new data platform that will permit the analysis, storage and sharing of pathogen sequence and source data, collected from multiple locations across the UK by diverse government and public organisations.

Foodborne disease is a major public health risk with 2.4 million individual illnesses and more than 16,000 hospitalisations per year. The majority of human disease is caused by a handful of pathogens that, in most cases, enter the food chain from farmed animals or the environment. In addition, the agri-food supply chain also poses a risk for the transmission of AMR as it is transmitted through food, animals, humans, or water. The combined threat of foodborne and AMR pathogens will create an even bigger problem for the food chain and so these threats need to be investigated together. 

AMR presents a serious threat to the health and welfare of both humans and animals and needs to be tackled with an immediate and appropriately robust response. Whilst the UK has made progress in reducing its use of antibiotics in humans and significantly in animals in the last five years, drug-resistant bloodstream infections in humans have increased by 32% from 2015 to 2019.

Recent advances in technology and data management offer the opportunity to create a new surveillance system to protect public health. This PATH-SAFE pilot project aims to significantly improve existing surveillance activities by testing if new technologies such as whole-genome sequencing and a national sampling database can make the diagnosis of pathogens more accurate, more rapid and more efficient.

Aims of the project

• Pilot a better national surveillance system for the monitoring and tracking of foodborne disease and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment and agri-food system, taking a 'One Health Approach'
• Bring together and build on existing initiatives and understand what the end-user really needs to improve how they work in this space

Programme structure

The FSA is the lead organisation for the project but the programme will also bring together expertise from:

• Food Standards Scotland (FSS)
• Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
• Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
• UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)
• Environment Agency (EA)
• Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD)
• Northern Ireland Government
• Welsh Government

For more information or to sign up to the newsletter email pathsafe@food.gov.uk.