London, Nov 27 (IANS): Eight of the every 10 fresh chickens bought from British supermarkets this summer were contaminated with the potentially lethal food-poisoning bug campylobacter, the food watchdog has said.

Britain's Food Standards Agency even warned that not one individual chain is presently meeting national targets over the issue, the Guardian reported Thursday.

Following six months of testing, an average of 70 percent of the supermarket chickens proved positive for campylobacter on samples of skin.

Within that, the watchdog said, the more recent three months of tests conducted between May and July showed an 80 percent incidence. The bug tends to be more prevalent during the summer, but consumer groups expressed shock at the soaring levels.

Across the six-month period 18 percent of the nearly 2,000 chickens tested contained the highest levels of campylobacter, the levels seen as most likely to make people ill. Six percent of packaging showed signs of the bug.