Salmonella prevalence in the poultry feed industry in Pakistan

Abstract: Abstract One of the leading causes of food borne infections in the world is due to Salmonella by con-suming poultry products including eggs and meat. According to US Food and Drug Admin-istration (2009), 2 to 4 million cases of Salmonellosis in humans occur every year only in US. Salmonella causes wide range of diseases with enteric and typhoid fever, food poisoning, di-arrhea and gastro-enteritis. Many serotypes of Salmonella do not have host specificity and cause disease in all kinds of animals and humans. Salmonella has capability to modify accord-ing to the changing environment and it can develop resistance against routine elimination practices of sanitation, chemical treatments and antibacterial drugs. Newly established poultry industries in Pakistan are confronting various infectious diseases including Salmonellosis while in Sweden Salmonella prevalence in animal products con-sumed for humans is extremely low. Poultry feed is considered to be the main source of trans-fer of Salmonella into poultry flocks. Dust, cooling system and feed ingredients can be major sources of Salmonella contamination during the feed milling process. Feed ingredients and environment which harbors Salmonella can mix contamination in feed which results in the cross contamination from feed to the animals. The aim of this master thesis was to isolate Salmonella and other Enterobacteriaceae during the milling process in the poultry feed industry of Pakistan. Furthermore, to introduce the techniques and prevention methods for the control of Salmonella which has been successfully practiced in Sweden and other developed countries. During the study, four feed mills producing poultry feed and 20 poultry farms consuming the feed from same mill were visited. Samples were collected from different compartments to isolate and identify Salmonella and ENT in the poultry feed production line. These compart-ments included raw material storage (RM), dosing bin (DB), mixer (MX), pellet making (PM), cooler (CL) and finished feed packaging (FF) along with storage bin of poultry farms. The results showed a 65.8% average contamination rate in the feed which was considered as an alarming situation for the poultry feed industry of Pakistan. There is dire need to develop a better understanding and assist poultry stakeholders to reduce Salmonella invasion in poultry industry in developing countries, including Pakistan. Routine bacteriological supervision of the feed production in factories needed to be monitored. Since Salmonella pathogenesis is complex, thermal process and pelleting may not be enough meth-ods to eliminate the Salmonella completely from feed. Recontamination may be occurring during cooling or transportation. The future perspective of this study is to introduce the knowledge to keep the whole chain of poultry production free from Salmonella