SAFECLIM Sécurité des Aliments et Facteurs Environnementaux liés au Changement cLIMatique

The SAFECLIM project aims to study the impact of climate change on food safety, focusing on the relationship between climate variations (high temperatures, droughts, extreme rainfall) and increased risks associated with Salmonella in France and Poland. It aims to understand how climatic conditions influence the distribution and virulence of Salmonella serovars through the analysis of epidemiological, food contamination, and climate data. The project plans to model risks by combining data on serovar distribution and machine learning tools in order to propose preventive strategies adapted to the seasons and the different climatic regions targeted: oceanic and continental. These results will contribute to improving quantitative risk assessment models and foodborne disease management, with implications for France, Poland, and even Europe.

Public health is threatened by the increase in foodborne diseases, which can lead to significant economic costs for health systems and the food industry.

Innovative technologies and strategies are needed to improve Salmonella risk management processes while conserving resources.

The SAFECLIM project explores several hypotheses, including that climate change, by increasing temperatures and causing extreme droughts and rainfall, directly affects the virulence and distribution of Salmonella serovars in food chains at the national and even continental level. Poland and France (particularly western France) represent two different climates with very different characteristics in summer and winter, which will enable this hypothesis to be validated.
SAFECLIM aims to provide a more detailed understanding of the interactions between climate change and the distribution of Salmonella serovars by combining i) determinations of serovars from strain libraries in France and Poland in summer and winter, with ii) analysis of large climate datasets (from the Copernicus, AGRI4CAST, and AgroMetInfo 2.0 databases). It will then be possible to refine risk assessment models and propose preventive strategies adapted to different seasons and regions according to different climate scenarios.

Ahmadou Sylla is a postdoctoral fellow in this project.