Salmonella Serotype Quarterly Results from Meat and Poultry Products: July–December 2012
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Pathogen Reduction; Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (PR/HACCP) Systems Final Rule sets Salmonella performance standards for establishments that slaughter or produce selected classes of food animals or raw ground products (2). The Salmonella performance standards provide a measurable standard by which industry can calibrate their HACCP systems and FSIS inspection personnel can monitor the effectiveness of an establishment’s HACCP controls.
Verification testing is a regulatory sampling program intended to assess the ability of meat and poultry establishments to comply with existing, product-specific performance standards (4, 5). FSIS believes that the verification testing results from Quarter 3 (July-September, 2012) and Quarter 4 (October –December, 2012) presented in this report provide a good indication of relative serotype distributions in raw products for each product class during this period. Serotype profile results are not intended to indicate serotype prevalence within a respective product class. Individual serotype test results are provided to each establishment (2, 3).
In June 2006, FSIS developed new criteria for scheduling establishments for sampling, replacing the targeted approach with risk-based sampling (4, 6). The new scheduling criteria focused FSIS resources on establishments with the most Salmonella positive samples, including serotypes frequently associated with human salmonellosis as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (1). This sampling criteria was updated in 2011 (7). Of note, FSIS stopped scheduling market hogs, cows/bulls, and steer/heifers for sampling in 2011.
In February 2006, FSIS began reporting quarterly summary results from Salmonella verification testing. The quarterly results for 2012 are provided below:
Each table (Quarters 3 and 4, 2012) in this report identifies the 10 most commonly isolated serotypes by name for each product class during each quarter. Those 10 most commonly isolated serotypes are ranked by percent positive. When there is more than one serotype in tenth place, all serotypes in tenth place are listed. In addition, the tables include entries classified as “other” serotypes which include both serotypes that were not in the top 10 as well as “unidentified” serotypes.
Among all product types tested in Quarter 3, the Salmonella serotypes that ranked among the five most commonly isolated included:
- Kentucky (112 out of 389 positives ),
- Montevideo (47 out of 389 positives),
- Typhimurium (34 out of 389 positives),
- Enteritidis (29 out of 389 positives),
- Heidelberg (26 out of 389 positives).
Among all product types tested in Quarter 4, the Salmonella serotypes that ranked among the five most commonly isolated included:
- Kentucky (78 out of 331 positives),
- Enteritidis (52 out of 331 positives),
- Heidelberg (37 out of 331 positives)
- Typhimurium (35 out of 331 positives),
- Infantis (13 out of 331 positives).
Because Salmonella set scheduling was restructured in 2006, comparison of results prior to and after 2006 would not be appropriate. Nationwide baseline studies provide valid estimates of the prevalence of pathogens of public health (5).