An exposure assessment model of the prevalence of Salmonella spp. along the processing stages of Brazilian beef

Abstract

Beef cattle carrying Salmonella spp. represents a risk for contamination of meat and meat products. This study aimed to build an exposure assessment model elucidating the changes in Salmonella prevalence in Brazilian beef along the processing stages. To this effect, the results of a number of published studies reporting Salmonella incidences were assembled in order to model conversion factors based on beta distributions representing the effect of every production stage on the Salmonella incidence on beef carcasses. A random-effects meta-analysis modelled the hide-to-carcass transfer of Salmonella contamination. The Monte Carlo simulation estimated the Salmonella prevalence in beef cuts from processing plants to be $6.1% (95% CI: 1.4-17.7%), which was in reasonable agreement with a pool (n ¼ 105) of surveys' data of Salmonella in Brazilian beef cuts (mean 4.9%; 95% CI: 1.8-11.5%) carried out in commercial establishments. The results not only underscored the significant increase in Salmonella prevalence that can occur during evisceration/splitting and boning but also reinforced that, when hygienic slaughter procedures are properly implemented, the load of Salmonella can be reduced at dehiding, rinsing and chilling. As the model was based on a systematic review and meta-analysis, it synthesised all available knowledge on the incidence of Salmonella in Brazilian beef.

Phenotypic and genotypic profile of clinical and animal multidrug-resistantSalmonella entericaisolates from Mexico

“…In Mexico, the presence of S. enterica in different food continues to be a Public health concern, in case of meat products the exposition′s risk to Salmonella is high if we consider that livestock animals are reservoirs of food‐borne pathogens and the carcass can be contaminated during the harvest (Gonzales‐Barron et al . ).…”

A Systematic Review of Beef Meat Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment Models

“…Beef meat Brazil All Meta-analysis-based exposure assessment [37] Zambia All Assessment of increasing beef consumption on public health [38] Beef products Finland All Assessment of imported beef and additional guarantees [39] All Assessment of impact of performance objectives and microbiological criteria [40] Burgers France All Outbreak investigation [41] Ground beef France All Evaluation of illness risk [42] North America All…”

“…− risks of illness and health burden associated with consumption of beef meat and preparations [16,21,22,24,25,[32][33][34][35][36]38,39,42,44]; − the effect of mitigation interventions [16,27,28,36,39,40,43,47,48]; − all or part of the farm-to-fork chain [18,20,24,[29][30][31]37]; − transmission pathways or contribution to the public health burden [17,26,43,46]; − impact of manufacturing and consumption practices [23]; − investigation on outbreaks [41].…”

“…Contamination during dehiding is linked with hide-to-carcass transfers during dirty surface spots removal [20,26,27,[30][31][32]37,43], through dirt-spreading during hide removal, or the rupture of surface lymph nodes [43]. Gonzales-Barrón et al [37] estimated through meta-analysis the mean prevalence of carcasses contaminated by EHEC after dehiding to be 4.8% (SD: 0.014) when the same data after bleeding was 12.5% (SD: 0.011).…”

“…Due to its extremely high bacterial load, equal to that of feces, a spotted GIT content leakage may result in the carcass being systematically consigned [28]. Most models take the evisceration step into account [17,24,27,30,31,33,36,37,43]. For example, Ebel et al [33] assumed that contamination of carcass through gut rupture might happen for zero to two percent of carcasses.…”