Traditional Salmonella Typhimurium typing tools (phage typing and MLVA) are sufficient to resolve well-defined outbreak events only.

In this study, we used cluster analysis tools to compare S. Typhimurium isolates from a chicken-meat study with those reported to the National Enteric Pathogen Surveillance System (NEPSS) from the coincident human and non-human populations. There was limited phage type diversity within all populations and a lack of specificity of MLVA profiling within phage types. The chicken-meat study isolates were not significantly clustered with the human cases and at least 7 non-human sources, based on typing profiles (PT/MLVA combination), could be implicated as a source of human cases during the same period. In the absence of a strong surveillance system representative of all putative sources, MLVA and phage typing alone or in combination are insufficient to identify the source of human cases. PMID: 31421774 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Food Microbiology - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: Food Microbiol Source Type: research