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Salmonella Outbreak Investigations: Timeline for Reporting Cases
To find cases in an outbreak of Salmonella infections, public health laboratories serotype the Salmonella bacteria and perform a kind of “DNA fingerprinting” on Salmonella laboratory samples. Investigators determine whether the “DNA fingerprint” pattern of Salmonella bacteria from one patient is the same as that from other patients in the outbreak and from the contaminated food. Bacteria with the same “DNA fingerprint” are likely to come from the same source. Public health officials conduct intensive investigations, including interviews with ill people, to determine if people whose infecting bacteria match by “DNA fingerprinting” are part of a common source outbreak.
