Enumeration, antimicrobial resistance and typing of Salmonella enterica: profile of strains carried in the intestinal contents of pigs at slaughter in Southern Brazil

ABSTRACT

Background: Despite a strong association between Salmonella isolation and slaughter hygiene, as measured by the Enterobacteriaceae levels on pre-chill carcass surfaces, a high variation in this association was observed between sampling dayswithin the same slaughterhouse. It was hypothesised that in a scenario of high exposure on the farm, batches with a highprevalence of carrier pigs shedding a high number of Salmonella may enhance the risk of contamination on some slaughterdays. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the profile of Salmonella carried in the intestinal contents of slaughter pigs.Materials, Methods & Results: Ten pig batches slaughtered in a slaughterhouse were investigated for the presence ofSalmonella. From each pig, the following samples were taken i. blood collected at bleeding; ii. sponges rubbed on thecarcass surface after bleeding and before chilling; iii. fragment of the ileocecal region of the intestine. Serum sampleswere subjected to a ELISA-Typhimurium test. Sponges were investigated for the presence of Salmonella and total aerobicmesophilic (TAM) and Enterobacteriaceae (EC) bacterial counts. Salmonella was enumerated in the intestinal contents.Selected Salmonella strains were subjected to an antimicrobial resistance disk diffusion test, macro-restriction with Xba-I(PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS). From the 50 sampled pigs, 96% were positive in the ELISA-Typhimuriumtest and 64% were Salmonella-positive in the intestinal contents. The amount of Salmonella in the intestinal content sampleswas highly variable, and the mean log of fitted distributions of Salmonella in the batch ranged from -2.97 to 2.25 cfu.g-1.The slaughter process achieved a logarithmic reduction, ranging from 0.64 to 2.35 log cfu.cm-2 for TAM and from 0.55 to2.57 log cfu.cm-2 for EC. Salmonella was isolated from 16% of the carcasses after bleeding; this frequency decreased to8% at the pre-chill...