Salmonella Found Faster with New Test

LIVERMORE, Calif-Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif, have announced they have developed a new diagnostic tool that detects the bacterium Salmonella enteritidis faster than current methods.

The discovery may help health officials reduce the time to identify food poisoning outbreak sources. The process of determining which strain of salmonella was responsible for previous health problems was tedious because there are a variety of possible strains. Testing eggs and poultry for S. enteritidis with previous methods would take days to weeks.

However, with the new screening tool, farm setting would be scanned for possible sources of the bacterium in an attempt to prevent an outbreak from occurring.

While the test has yet to be approved by officials at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), researchers say the screen has tested well against conventional screening methods.

The experiment and development of the new screening method has in part funded by the California Egg Commission.

Information from www.givenimaging.com