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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Meat Safety and Quality » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #409498
Research Project: Identification, Genomic Characterization, and Metabolic Modeling of Foodborne Pathogens in the Meat Production Continuum

Location: Meat Safety and Quality

Title: Identifying a list of Salmonella serotypes of concern to target for reducing risk of salmonellosis

Author
item KATZ, TATUM - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item Harhay, Dayna
item Schmidt, John
item Wheeler, Tommy

Submitted to: Frontiers in Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/25/2024
Publication Date: 2/11/2024
Citation: Katz, T.S., Harhay, D.M., Schmidt, J.W., Wheeler, T.L. 2024. Identifying a list of Salmonella serotypes of concern to target for reducing risk of salmonellosis. Frontiers in Microbiology. 15. Article 1307563. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1307563.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1307563

Interpretive Summary: Salmonella (the organism which causes salmonellosis) is the leading cause of bacterial foodborne illness in the United States. However, Salmonella are very diverse and not all of them cause human illness. There is a recent shift in salmonellosis management to understand that only targeting the worst Salmonella (instead of targeting all Salmonella) will cause a greater reduction in salmonellosis cases. Therefore, we have performed a study using human illness data about salmonellosis to identify which Salmonella should be targeted for increased management in the meat and poultry industries. Our results can help inform meat and poultry producers to better manage Salmonella, and can help direct new management and detection technologies which could specifically target the Salmonella that cause the most human illness, ideally bringing about a decrease in salmonellosis.

Technical Abstract: There is an increasing awareness in the field of Salmonella epidemiology that focusing control efforts on those serotypes which cause severe human health outcomes, as opposed to broadly targeting all Salmonella, will likely lead to the greatest advances in decreasing the incidence of salmonellosis. Yet, little guidance exists to support validated, scientific selection of target serotypes. The goal of this perspective is to develop an approach to identifying serotypes of greater concern and present a case study using meat- and poultry-attributed outbreaks to examine challenges in developing a standardized framework for defining target serotypes.