Representative Salmonella serovars isolated from poultry and poultry environments in Saudi Arabia

The authors describe the source and prevalence of pathogenic Salmonella serovars among poultry farms in Saudi Arabia. A total of 1,052 (4%) Salmonella isolates were recovered from 25,759 samples of poultry (broilers, layers, broiler breeders and layer breeders) and poultry environments (box liner, litter, drag swab, droppings, mice and feed) were examined bacteriologically between 1988 and 1997 at the Poultry Disease Laboratory at the National Agriculture and Water Research Center in Riyadh. Eleven Salmonella serogroups representing 38 different Salmonella serovars were identified by means of antigenic analysis. The majority of the 276 isolates (26.2%) of Salmonella typed, were recovered from liver, heart and intestines of the broilers and layers. The most prominent Salmonella serogroups isolated were as follows: serogroup C1 (392 isolates, 37.26%), B (289 isolates, 27.47%) and D1 (269 isolates, 25.69%). However, untypable and multiple serogroups were also encountered, the most frequent isolates serotyped belonged to groups C1 (97 isolates, 24.7%), D1 (86 isolates, 31.9%), and B (71 isolates, 24.6%). Salmonella Enteritidis (85 isolates, 98.8%), Salmonella Virchow (48 isolates, 57.8%), Salmonella Paratyphi B var. Java (41 isolates, 57.7%) and Salmonella Infantis (30 isolates, 20.6%) were distributed the most widely as all were encountered in poultry and in poultry environments. S. Enteritidis phage type 4 (30 isolates, 35.3%), was the phage type most frequently detected among group D1 phage types, while 39 (45.8%) of the isolates of S. Enteritidis could not be phage typed.