Salmonella enteritidis gastroenteritis transmitted by intact chicken eggs.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the source and to describe the clinical importance of a large outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis gastroenteritis in Tennessee, which is outside the geographic focus of the S. enteritidis pandemic.

DESIGN

A case-control study and tracing of the source eggs.

SETTING

A Tennessee community and a large layer farm in Indiana.

PATIENTS

Case patients ate at the implicated restaurant and subsequently developed S. enteritidis gastroenteritis; controls ate with the case patients, but did not develop gastroenteritis.

MEASUREMENTS

Eighty-one case patients were identified; 73 (90%) had eaten egg-containing sauces at a local restaurant on a given evening. The eggs were traced to their farm of origin in Indiana. The farm was inspected 5 weeks after the outbreak.

MAIN RESULTS

Of 24 patients with culture-proved cases, 11 were hospitalized. Hollandaise and bernaise sauces prepared with intact, extra-large, grade-A eggs were strongly associated with illness (P less than 0.001). Salmonella enteritidis was isolated from specimens collected from chickens and the farm. Antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, phage typing, and plasmid profiles of isolates from the farm and from patients were indistinguishable.

CONCLUSIONS

Salmonella enteritidis infection is a large and growing public health problem that is spreading beyond the northeastern United States. This study shows a direct link between infected poultry flocks and an outbreak of human illness.