New tip for handling eggs due to salmonella infestation

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New Zealand needs to prevent salmonella from getting into its eggs.

NOTE: A strain of Salmonella , which is a leading cause of human infections in Europe and the United States, was recently detected in routine poultry tests in New Zealand.

Subsequently, Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) was found in environmental samples from a chicken farm on the North Island that supplies several producers of chicken meat and eggs. These producers were closed for disinfection and some herds were euthanized, a devastating event for those affected.

Very strict protocols have been put in place to keep this particular strain of ES out of the egg and poultry production chain, but as we know, bacteria and viruses are adept at pushing boundaries and breaking our defenses.

Genetic analysis shows that this unwanted import is most closely related to a European strain, but we cannot tell how it got into it.

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MPI has advised consumers on how to avoid infection from eggs potentially contaminated with this strain:

• Keep your eggs in the refrigerator after you buy them.
• Avoid raw or undercooked egg products. In particular, do not give raw eggs to children under the age of two, pregnant women, the frail, the elderly, and people with weak or compromised immune systems.
• Boil the eggs well until the whites are quite solid and the yolks start to thicken.
• Wash your hands after handling eggs.
• Eat your eggs before the recommended date on the box.
• Keep kitchen surfaces and utensils clean and dry before and after handling eggs.
• Use clean eggs that are free of dirt, feces, and cracks.

As always, people should be careful when handling raw chicken - washing hands, surfaces, and all kitchen utensils.

The problem with this strain of ES is that it could infect chickens' reproductive organs, so any eggs they lay can contain the bacteria. It was previously believed that the salmonella species found in New Zealand primarily contaminated the surfaces of eggshells and not the actual contents of the eggs.

Good cooking will kill it. Homemade mayonnaise and all foods that contain raw eggs / egg yolks or protein are excluded from the menu until the pathogen in question has been eliminated. Without licking the bowl.

These and other loads can contaminate the surface of the casing and thus infect people during handling. For this reason, it is important to wash your hands after using eggs and to clean the surfaces of the food preparation after contact with eggs and eggshells.

Until SE was discovered, it was not necessary to refrigerate the eggs, but it is now recommended that the eggs be refrigerated so that SE does not reproduce to dangerous levels when SE is in the yolk.

Infection with this strain is fairly serious and has resulted in hospitalization in 40 percent of the identified cases. As with Covid-19, genome tests are an invaluable forensic tool for epidemiologists.

Many isolates from human cases are genetically identical to those from organic farm samples. Since 2019, 114 human cases of infection have been linked to this ES strain, 47 of them this year (as of July 23, 2021).

Scientists from the Department of Primary Industries, the Department of Health, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) and the New Zealand Food Safety Science and Research Center have teamed up to help the industry find, track down and eliminate this SE strain.

With the experience of Covid-19 and Mycoplasma bovis , we will become very good at tracking the transmission of diseases that affect animals and humans.

Dr. Catherine McLeod is the director and the distinguished Professor Nigel French is the senior scientist of New Zealand's Food Safety Science and Research Center. Dr. Joanne Kingsbury and Dr. Sarah Jefferies work at ESR. Glenda Lewis is a science writer.

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