Survival of salmonella in pig carcasses in slaughterhouses

Abstract

Salmonella has been widely recognized as themost important zoonotic pathogen with health and economic impact on animals and humans. It is one of the major bacterial causes of gastroenteritis worldwide.The microrganism may also be transmitted through a direct contact with infected animals or faecalcontaminated environments and humans. The most common symptom of nontyphoidal Salmonella infection is acute gastroenteritis. The objectiveof this experiment was to determine the status of Salmonella on pig carcasses at aslaughterhouse. For Salmonella detection, samples were analysed according to ISO 6579:2008 and positive samples were serotyped by Kauffman-White-Le- Minor technique. The presence of Salmonella spp. after stunning was determined in 41% of the carcasses (100 carcasses were examined) while after processing, Salmonellawas confirmed in 2% of the tested carcasses. Detection of Salmonella after stunning was within a range of 0 to 90%, during ten weeks of sampling. After processing, Salmonella was isolated only in two carcasses both originating from the third week of the study.