DOSSIER
Pathogenesis of egg infections by Salmonella and the implementation of preventive measures – First Part Salmonella is one of the most important zoonotic bacterial pathogens, mainly caused by consumption of contaminated food products, and is of global importance. Strains from the serotypes Enteritidis and Typhimurium are most important for human food poisoning, and the former are highly associated with egg consumption. efficacy of control methods and programs. Live and attenuated vaccines are in use and these give partial protection against intestinal and internal organ colonization, and egg contamination.
Epidemiology of Salmonella infections Most Salmonella strains belong to non-host specific or broad-host range serotypes, and thus can colonize the gut of many animal species, including humans. In contrast to host-specific serotypes that cause septicemia and severe disease (typhoidal serotypes), the broad-host range serotypes are asymptomatically colonising the host in most cases, but can cause diarrhoea when high numbers of bacteria are orally take up at once, as is the case in human food poisoning (non-typhoidal serotypes).
F. Van Immerseel and R. Ducatelle Ghent University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Pathology, Bacteriology and Avian Diseases, Salisburylaan, Merelbeke
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Salmonella is an invasive bacterial genus and colonizes the gut of chickens, and systemically spreads to internal organs, including the reproductive tract, potentially leading to egg contamination. Monitoring programs are essential to assess the prevalence of infected flocks and detect changes in prevalence and are important to evaluate the
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Salmonella is one of the most important zoonotic bacterial pathogens, mainly caused by consumption of contaminated food products, and is of global importance. The global burden of gastroenteritis due to Salmonella has been studied by various authors. Majowicz et al. (2006) estimated the global number of Salmonella cases to be around 1.600 million cases per year. An estimation of the global and regional disease burden by the World Health Orga-
