IMPORTANCE OF PREENRICHMENT MEDIA FOR ISOLATION OF SALMONELLA SPP. FROM SWINE AND POULTRY

The performance of two new (1-day) culture methods, Salmonella Enrichm ent Broth (SEB) and Revive, and an alternative pre-enrichment broth, d esignated Universal pre-enrichment broth (UB), was compared to the int ernationally accepted buffered peptone water (BPW). The study was dire cted towards detection of Salmonella in 100 faecal samples from porcin e and 100 neck-skin samples from poultry. The sensitivity (number of p ositive cases per method among all the positive cases) of the conventi onal pre-enrichment in BPW was found to be 0.77 for swine and 0.66 for poultry samples, while a combination of the BPW method with parallel pre-enrichment of the same sample in UB resulted in high sensitivity f or swine (0.92) and poultry (0.95) samples. A 2-h pre-enrichment in th e non-selective Revive, followed by overnight enrichment in selective broth, resulted in a low sensitivity, particularly for the neck-skin s amples (0.16, P = 0.001). The SEE method in the porcine samples result ed in a sensitivity (0.71) comparable to the standard method (P = 0.31 ). In conclusion, additional pre-enrichment of samples in UB may subst antially increase the culture sensitivity. During routine screening of large numbers of samples, it may be advantageous to use SEE rather th an standard culturing. (C) 1998 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.