OCCURRENCE OF SALMONELLAE IN RAW BROILERS AND THEIR PRODUCTS IN THAILAND

A study was conducted to determine the presence of salmonellae in raw chicken meat, giblets (liver, heart, gizzard) and cooked chicken products (meatballs and sausages) in Bangkok. A total of 1,135 samples, collected from nine open markets, nine supermarkets and four poultry processing plants, were examined. Salmonellae were isolated from 467 (66%) of 705 chicken meat samples, 190 (86%) of 221 samples of giblets and 21 (100%) of 209 cooked products. Out of 678 tested isolates, 46 serotypes and one rough strain were found. The five most common serotypes isolated from chicken meat were Salmonella blockley, Salmonella virchow, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella hadar and Salmonella paratyphi B; these accounted for 14, 12, 12, 9 and 9%, respectively, of the strains isolated in this study. The major isolates from giblets were S. virchow, Salmonella kentucky, S. enteritidis, Salmonella agona and S. blockley (15, 13, 12, 12 and 11%, respectively). Salmonel[a derby (33%) was the serotype most often isolated from the cooked poultry products.