Rapid detection of Salmonella: Evaluation of requirements for enrichment serology procedure and its clinical application

Abstract

An improved procedure, modified enrichment serology procedure (ES), for rapid detection of Salmonella is presented. Employing this procedure, Salmonellae can be detected from meat and feces, within 46 and 28 hours, respectively, while 4 to 5 days are necessary for the isolation of the bacteria employing usual culture method (BC).Salmonellae were detected from 19 specimens out of 84 (prepared from 16 different meat stocks) by employing BC, ES and ES culture method (ESC). Positive detection rates of Salmonella by these procedure were 94.7%(18/19), 89.5%(17/19) and 94.7%(18/19), respectively, for BC, ES and ESC.The total number of strains detected from these 19 specimens was 29 (twenty-four strains were isolated by BC and ESC). The number of bacterial strains detected was 24 from 17 specimens for ES, 20 from 18 specimens for BC and 23 from 18 specimens for ESC. By employing ES, it is possible to guess the serotype of detected Salmonella strains without performing further isolation and identification procedures, if the detected bacteria belong to frequently detectable serotypes.Since ES can be performed more quickly and is simpler than BC which is laborious and expensive, this seems to be a useful procedure for the detection or screening of Salmonellae in meat, sewage and feces.