Related Experiment Videos
A multi-state outbreak of Salmonella bredeney food poisoning: a case control study
D F Baker1, E Kraa, S J Corbett
1Environmental Health Food and Nutrition Branch, New South Wales Health Department.
Objective:
To investigate a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella bredeney.
Design:
Case interviews followed by an age and neighbourhood matched case control study.
Participants:
People with laboratory-confirmed S. bredeney and controls matched on age and geographical location in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Victoria.
Results:
We identified 157 persons with S. bredeney spread throughout the eastern states and the ACT. In the matched analysis, cold meat and chicken demonstrated a significant odds ratio of 4.4 (p = 0.017) and 4.2 (p = 0.02) respectively. Among primary cases, the odds ratio for chicken was 6.0 (p = 0.01) and for ground pepper was 3.75 (p = 0.04).
Conclusions:
The most likely source of this outbreak was a product contaminated at the point of manufacture and distributed widely within NSW and the ACT and, to a lesser extent, Queensland (Brisbane) and Melbourne. The most probable food is a meat or chicken product, followed by substantial cross contamination of other meat products at retail outlets, which served to amplify the outbreak.