Salmonella enterica is a major cause of gastroenteritis, with 180 million cases globally per year (9% of all infectious gastroenteritis cases) and is responsible for almost half (41%) of the deaths associated to the diarrhoeal disease. Salmonella shows the highest rates of demonstrated association to food-borne infection, i.e. 52% for non-typhoidal salmonellosis [1]. In 2019, 87,923 confirmed cases of salmonellosis in humans were reported in Europe, with a European Union (EU) notification rate of 20.0 cases per 100,000 population; Salmonella caused 26.6% of all food-borne outbreaks [2]. In France, Salmonella remains the main cause of food-borne illness–associated hospitalisation and death [3,4].
Three serotypes are responsible for the majority of Salmonella infections in Europe: Enteritidis, Typhimurium and its monophasic variant (1,4,[5],12:i:-), together representing 70.3% of the 79,300 confirmed human cases with a known serotype in 2019. After poultry, pork is the most frequent source for salmonellosis in Europe (31%), and it has become the most frequent source for Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium and its monophasic variant 1,4,[5],12:i:-. In France, pork is suspected to be responsible for half of the salmonellosis cases reported every year [2,5,6].
S. enterica serotype Bovismorbificans is a relatively frequent food-borne pathogen (57 cases/year in France from 2012–20, and it was the 13th most frequently isolated serotype among human-identified Salmonella infections in Europe in 2019 [2]. Serotype Bovismorbificans is often identified in association with consumption of contaminated vegetables [7–11]. However, it has also been recently involved in outbreaks linked to horse and pork meat in Australia and France [12,13].
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