Occurrence of Salmonella enteritidis in pooled table eggs and market-ready chicken carcasses in Zambia.

The level of Salmonella enteritidis contamination in Zambian table eggs and ready market chicken carcasses was studied. Nine of the 240 (3.8%) pooled samples of table eggs and 18 of 382 (4.7%) chicken carcasses were contaminated with S. enteritidis. All the isolates from the table eggs belonged to the enteropathogenic invasive phage type 4, whereas seven isolates from the chicken carcasses belonged to phage type 4, three were phage type 7, and eight were untypable (rough type). All the isolates were sensitive to gentamycin, ampicillin, tetracycline, cotrimoxazole, amoxycillin, furazolidone, and chloramphenicol.