Warning about aggressive salmonella strain in European pig farming

Pig farming practices, particularly larger intensive farms, risk encouraging the spread of an especially virulent strain of salmonella, the UK’s Soil Association warns.

The organic certification and campaigning body has called on the UK government to take action to limit the spread of monophasic salmonella typhimurium, said to be more aggressive than other types and highly resistant to antibiotics. The country’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) has established a link with pig farming and pork-derived products.

The Soil Association quotes a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) 2010 Scientific Opinion on ‘salmonella typhimurium-like strains’, warning of “a particularly high attack rate in children and old people”, and “an unusually high rate of hospitalisation”.

In fact, EFSA’s conclusion last year was that the public health risk posed by monophasic strains was comparable to that of other salmonella typhimurium strains. It confirmed, though, that some variants were multidrug resistant.

While EFSA does not speculate about the cause of the “recent emergence and rapid international spread” of this salmonella type, the Soil Association highlights documented links with pig farming. The association is among those campaigning against a planned 25,000-animal pig farm in Derbyshire, England.