The AVA Annual Conference is the nation’s premier veterinary event, covering all fields of veterinary science and in 2017 brought together over 920 veterinary professionals and 115 exhibitors.
Current routine surveillance activities for Salmonella spp. in commercial poultry production rely on the use of phenotyping (serotyping and phage typing) tools to determine the entry of Salmonella into populations. The usefulness of MLVA typing (Salmonella Typhimurium) for surveillance beyond outbreak investigation and trace-back to farm have not been substantiated in field studies. The rapid introduction of whole genome sequencing means some of these tools are rapidly becoming unavailable. Despite many years of surveillance and research, we still know very little about the genetic relationships between Salmonella Typhimurium phage types and MLVA profiles and their usefulness in routine field surveillance in commercial production settings. In this study, I compared the use phenotyping (phage typing) and genotyping (MLVA) with whole genome sequencing to understand points of introduction and transmission of Salmonella Typhimurium within two poultry enterprises, egg layer and chicken meat.
