Description Of Control Programmes For Salmonella In Pigs In Europe. Progress To Date?

Salmonella spp. are one of the main causes of foodborne disease in Europe and have been associated with consumption of pig meat. However, Salmonella monitoring programmes in pigs and pig meat are not harmonized between those European countries where they exist. In general, current control programmes in Europe can be split into those aiming for: (a) elimination of infection and (b) control and reduction. Elimination programmes for Salmonella were introduced by Sweden, Norway, and Finland several decades ago. They have several elements in common including: prevalence at farm level at the start of the programmes was low, the programmes focus on the entire food chain and use bacteriology as the main detection method. If Salmonella contamination is detected stringent measures are applied. These programmes have achieved their target of a very low level of positive carcase swabs. Other European countries (e.g., Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Ireland) have aimed for control and reduction of Salmonella in pigs rather than elimination. The main component that these programmes have in common is that their monitoring system is based on serology and farms are assigned to risk categories based on their serological profile, with control measures being targeted to high seroprevalence farms. The degree of success of each programme has varied but overall, the programmes described here have not achieved a consistent reduction of farm-level prevalence. This review describes these programmes in detail and discusses reasons for the failure to achieve the desired outcome of reducing Salmonella prevalence at farm level.