A MULTISTATE OUTBREAK OF SALMONELLA BREDENEY FOOD POISONING - A CASE-CONTROL STUDY

Objective: To investigate a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella bredene y: Design: Case: interviews followed by an age and neighbourhood match ed case control study. Participants: People with laboratory-confirmed S. bredeney and controls matched on age and geographical location in N ew South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Victo ria. Results: We identified 157 persons with S. bredeney spread throug hout the eastern states and the ACT. In the matched analysis, cold mea t and chicken demonstrated a significant odds ratio of 4.4 (p=0.017) a nd 4.2 (p=0.02) respectively. Among primary cases, the odds ratio for chicken was 6.0 (p=0.01) and for ground pepper was 3.75 (p=0.04). Conc lusions: The most likely source of this outbreak was a product contami nated at the point of manufacture and distributed widely within NSW an d the ACT and, to a lesser extent, Queensland (Brisbane) and Melbourne . The most probable food is a meat or chicken product, followed by sub stantial cross contamination of other meat products at retail outlets, which served to amplify the outbreak.