Salmonella reduction in pork production

Yearly approximately 80 million cases of human Salmonella infections are reported world wide. This makes Salmonella one of the most important zoonosis. There are over 2,400 different serotypes of Salmonella of which the most important in swine are S. Typhimurium, S. Derby and S. Cholera-suis. About 95% of the Salmonella infections are sub-clinical in swine. Clinical infections are manifested by lack of appetite, watery yellow diarrhea, fever and acute mortality. Clinical infections are most often seen in starter/finisher pigs and replacer gilts, but sometimes sows and (weaner) piglets are affected as well.

 

Several factors can contribute to the incidence of Salmonella in swine:

 

The use of some ingredients in the preparation of animal feed poses a risk for Salmonella contamination. Especially soy beans (toasted) /soy meal / hulls, rapeseed meal / hulls, sunflower meal / hulls, fish meal (untreated) and egg shells are high-risk ingredients.

 

 

The consumption of pork coming from contaminated meat/carcasses contributes to the incidence of human salmonellosis. Pigs carrying Salmonella are the most important contaminants of pork meat in the slaughterhouse.

 

Stress contributes greatly to the shedding of bacteria. The higher the stress of the animal, the higher the number of bacteria that are excreted. This causes a problem for slaughterhouses, as transport to the slaughterhouse is a very stressful event for most animals. The number of bacteria shed after arrival at the slaughterhouse is therefore elevated and this increases the risk of contaminated carcasses. Most slaughterhouses have therefore a monitoring system in which carcass contaminations are routinely measured.

 

Numerous studies have shown that supplementation of the feed with Sangrovit® contributes to food safety by reducing carcass contamination with Salmonella (Figure 1). Sangrovit® reduces the shedding of Salmonella through 2 different mechanisms:

 

Firstly, the anti-inflammatory properties of Sangrovit® improve gut health resulting in a more balanced microbiota (Artuso-Ponte et al., 2014). This reduces the amount of Salmonella shed (Figure 2; Robbins et al., 2013).

 

Secondly, Sangrovit® supplementation reduces stress, as measured by salivary cortisol levels (Figure 3; Artuso-Ponte, 2014; Suwannathada et al., 2015), which results in reduced shedding of Salmonella for animals supplemented with Sangrovit® (Figure 2; Robbins et al., 2013).