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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Egg and Poultry Production Safety Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #330368
Research Project: Evaluation of Management of Laying Hens and Housing Systems to Control Salmonella and Other Pathogenic Infections, Egg Contamination, and Product Quality

Location: Egg and Poultry Production Safety Research Unit

Title: Sampling and detection of Salmonella in eggs

Author
item Gast, Richard

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/26/2016
Publication Date: 5/1/2017
Citation: Gast, R.K. 2017. Sampling and detection of Salmonella in eggs. In Achieving Sustainable Production of eggs: Volume 1: Safety and Quality, J. Roberts, Ed. Burleigh Dodds, Cambridge, UK. p.141-160.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The detection of Salmonella in the edible internal contents of shell eggs provides the most incontrovertible and epidemiologically relevant evidence that laying flocks might threaten consumers. Accordingly, dependable tests for Salmonella in eggs remain essential for achieving public health objectives. Research has helped explain how eggs are contaminated by Salmonella, where the pathogen is deposited and how it potentially multiplies during egg storage, and what types of assays are best able to find contaminants. However, effective utilization of egg testing results is constrained by the methodological challenges of rapidly detecting contamination which occurs at extremely low cell numbers and prevalence.