A study was conducted to determine the presence of salmonellae in raw chicken meat, giblets (liver, heart, gizzard) and cooked chicken products (meatballs and sausages) in Bangkok. A total of 1,135 samples, collected from nine open markets, nine supermarkets and four poultry processing plants, were examined. Salmonellae were isolated from 467 (66%) of 705 chicken meat samples, 190 (86%) of 221 samples of giblets and 21 (10%) of 209 cooked products. Out of 678 tested isolates, 46 serotypes and one rough strain were found. The five most common serotypes isolated from chicken meat were Salmonella blockley , Salmonella virchow , Salmonella enteritidis , Salmonella hadar and Salmonella paratyphi B; these accounted for 14, 12, 12, 9 and 9%, respectively, of the strains isolated in this study. The major isolates from giblets were S. virchow , Salmonella Kentucky , S. enteritidis , Salmonella agona and S. blockley (15, 13, 12, 12 and 11%, respectively). Salmonella derby (33%) was the serotype most often isolated from the cooked poultry products.
Keywords: Chicken meat; chicken meatball; chicken sausage; salmonellae.