Occurrence of Salmonella enteritidis in pooled table eggs and market-readychicken carcasses in Zambia

The level of Salmonella enteritidis contamination in Zambian table eggs and ready market chicken carcasses was studied. Nine of the 240 (3.8%) pooled samples of table eggs and 18 of 382 (4.7%) chicken carcasses were contamina ted with S. enteritidis. Ail the isolates from the table eggs belonged to t he enteropathogenic invasive phage type 4, whereas seven isolates from the chicken carcasses belonged to phage type 4, three were phage type 7, and ei ght were untypable trough type). All the isolates were sensitive to gentamy cin, ampicillin, tetracycline, cotrimoxazole, amoxycillin, furazolidone, an d chloramphenicol.