CDC Identifies Non-Typhoidal Salmonella as Major Pathogen Causing Foodborne Illness in U.S., Ground Beef Common Cause
In a recent study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) as one of the top five pathogens contributing to foodborne illnesses in the U.S. Cases of salmonellosis were largely associated with beef products, despite implementation of interventions at slaughter and processing facilities to reduce contamination.
For its analysis, CDC collected data from its Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (FDOSS), searching for all foodborne NTS outbreaks linked to beef as the single contaminated ingredient or implicated food, with the date of first illness onset spanning 2012–2019. Data provided by FDOSS included number of illnesses, hospitalizations, deaths, patient demographics, outbreak duration and geographic scope, method and setting of food preparation, traceback and recall information, and NTS serotypes for each outbreak. The researchers also queried CDC’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) for information on antibiotic susceptibility testing for outbreak-related isolates identified through FDOSS.