Comparison of european surveillance and control programs for Salmonella in broiler and Turkey chains

For the past years, Salmonella has been one of the major foodborne pathogens in Europe, leading to the development of several control efforts to reduce its impact on human health. Poultry meat has been consistently implicated in foodborne cases of salmonellosis. One of the strategies to lessen the burden of salmonellosis in humans was the implementation of national control programs (NCPs) for Salmonella in broilers and turkeys aiming for reductions in these animal populations. In this paper, a description and comparison of the Salmonella surveillance and control programs that are currently implemented for the broiler and turkey chains in different European countries was performed.

All the countries studied have set multiple surveillance and control actions for Salmonella at different stages of the broiler and turkey chains, namely the feed, farm and meat levels. Although most of the control programs are aligned with European Union (EU) regulations, some differences were observed, mostly regarding feed controls, farm surveillance schemes, target serovars and the handling of positive flocks. Overall, these differences had a regional pattern, with the Nordic countries having more detailed control programs with a zero-tolerance in meat. The remaining countries generally follow EU legislation, but in some cases, additional specifications were identified by this study.

Despite the positive impact of these control programs on the reduction of human cases of salmonellosis, the decreasing tendency has reached a stall. The authors suggest that the NCPs are regularly revised within the framework of risk-based meat assurance systems, and the inclusion of additional target serovars which are simultaneously prevalent in broiler and turkey flocks and relevant in terms of public health within a country or a region. Furthermore, within the revision of NCPs, sampling schemes and strategies need to be consistent, following the risk management approach that has led to very low prevalences of Salmonella in poultry meat in some European countries.