[Prevalence of Salmonella in meat and meat products in Moravia in 2010-2015]

Bacteria of the genus Salmonella greatly contribute to foodborne infections of the gastrointestinal tract in humans. An important source of the diseases is foods of animal origin. The study aimed at monitoring and assessing the prevalence of individual Salmonella serovars in samples of meat and meat products collected in Moravia, Czech Republic.

Between 2010 and 2015, the State Veterinary Institute in Olomouc performed microbiology tests in a total of 52,735 meat and meat product samples to detect Salmonella spp. The samples were collected in Moravia and a part of East Bohemia. Bacteriological examination of the samples was carried out in accordance with the Czech version of the European Standard EN ISO 6579 : 2002. Genus identification of suspected isolates was performed using the MALDI-TOF MS method; Salmonella serotypes were identified by a slide agglutination test using the White-Kaufmann-Le Minor scheme.

Salmonella spp. were detected in 2.4 % of the 52,735 samples examined. The highest rate of detection (21.9 %) was noted in poultry meat, followed by poultry meat preparations (9.1 % of positive samples) and other meat preparations (0.7 % of positive samples). The serovars most frequently identified from positive samples were Salmonella Infantis and S. Derby. The rates of Salmonella spp. detected in the monitored commodities have been increasing since 2012. However, this may be due to a better risk analysis when selecting samples to be tested.

Salmonella spp. were most frequently detected in poultry and poultry products. The other types of meat and meat products constituted only a small proportion of the positive cases. The analysis of Salmonella spp. isolated from foods showed that serovars most prevalent in meat and meat products are different from the serovar S. Enteritidis, mainly responsible for causing the diseases in humans.