Salmonella status of table eggs in commercial layer farms in Menoua Division, West region of Cameroon.

Egg and poultry industry products are affected by the bacteriological quality of eggs. Contamination of edible contents of eggs with Salmonella may either lead to disease outbreaks in human or to weak/diseased hatched chicks. In order to obtain a baseline data on the occurrence of these bacteria in hen eggs in Cameroon, eggs were collected from layer farms in the West Region of Cameroon and examined for Salmonella contamination using standard bacteriological methods. A total of 140 table eggs from 20 flocks belonging to 19 layer farms were sampled. The mean age of the sampled farms and layers were 11.35 ± 10.30 years and 50.44 ± 23.07 weeks respectively. The flock size varied between 500 and 7000 layers. All the 19 sampled farms were positive for at least one Salmonella isolate. Three serovars were recorded in the flocks: S . Enteritidis present in nearly all the sampled flocks (19 out of 20) and on all the farms (19/19), S. Paratyphi present in 35% of sampled flocks (7 out of 20), and S . Typhimurium present in 30% of sampled flocks (6 out of 20). Over all, the prevalence of Salmonella in the sampled eggs was 88.6% (124 out of 140). The highest prevalence was obtained with S. Enteritidis (75.7%), followed by S . Paratyphi (8.6%) and finally S. Typhimurium (4.3%). S. Enteritidis was found to be the most widespread isolate, recorded in all the sampled localities. The occurrence of these zoonotic Salmonella serovars constitutes a big challenge for poultry and egg industry, and for public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]