Page 8 - National Poultry Newspaper

Runny white and runny yolk, so not yet cooked and not ready to eat.
Over easy, or perhaps closer to over medium or even over hard. Ready to eat.
Salmonellosis, the dis- ease caused by the bacte- ria salmonella, is usually characterised by acute onset of fever, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea and sometimes vomiting.
“The team look forward to continuing their re- search through field test- ing.
So if unlucky enough to get an egg with bacteria on it, the food will be- come safe by cooking it properly.
Salmonella runs on the board in Sydney test
Cant Comment by BRENDON CANT
UNIVERSITY of New South Wales researchers have created new DNA tests to accelerate salmo- nella detection and pin- point the source of food- poisoning outbreaks.
lecular Sciences senior author Professor Ruiting Lan said the new tests could play a critical role in quickly and accurate- ly tracing the origin of future salmonella infec- tions.
ly to be associated with local infections while others more likely to be associated with imported cases.”
ness without the need to culture the bacteria in a lab.
They have developed a series of accurate and highly sensitive DNA tests which can identify the five most common salmonella subtypes in Australia.
“It is essential for pub- lic health investigators to have a fast, simple way of tracking down the source of salmonella outbreaks, so the ability to test for different types of salmo- nella is important.
Professor Lan said the new DNA tests developed in the study were unique because the gene markers used were selected from analysing thousands of salmonella genomes.
“Down the track, our tests could be used in clinical diagnosis in de- termining the common serotypes that cause sal- monella disease, to ana- lyse trends of serotypes for public health surveil- lance, and they could also have application in the food industry,” Professor Lan said.
Salmonella is one of the most common causes of foodborne disease, includ- ing in Australia.
“Salmonella, whether it’s in a clinical or food sample, even in faecal matter, may exist in min- ute amounts and requires highly sensitive methods to detect.
“These markers are spe- cific to the given serotypes and thus future-proof our new tests as traditional culture-based serotyping is being phased out.”
According to Australian Eggs’ website salmonella is killed instantly at 74C.
People generally catch salmonellosis by consum- ing contaminated food of animal origin – mainly eggs, meat, poultry, and milk – although other foods, including veg- etables contaminated by manure, have been impli- cated in its transmission.
“Our enhanced Multiple Cross Displacement A m- plification method can de- tect tiny amounts of DNA rapidly and at a constant temperature, which makes it an excellent fit for a simple, rapid and sensitive bacterial detection test.
“The performance of the MCDA tests warrants fur- ther validation, so more work needs to be done.
In the same way people know not to eat raw chick- en or leave milk out of the fridge all day, there are a few simple steps to protect against possible egg-relat- ed food poisoning.
These new tests are fast, detecting DNA in as little as eight minutes and work at a constant temperature unlike other methods that require specialised equip- ment for temperature cy- cling.
The research overcomes the expensive and labori- ous traditional bacteria- culture method and paves the way for fast track test- ing directly from speci- mens.
In 2017, more than 16,000 cases of salmo- nella poisoning were re- ported in Australia – a 30 percent increase on the previous 10 year average, while the rate is estimated at 185 cases per 100,000 people per year.
“It’s difficult to know when our tests would be- come available, but they are part of the global trend towards culture-independ- ent diagnostic tests which can identify the bacteria causing a foodborne ill-
Pending further research the scientists say their tests could help public health laboratories and in- dustry curb the spread of salmonella outbreaks.
“The test has been de- veloped using pure cul- tures.
“It is a clear improve- ment on the existing MCDA test for salmonella that does not distinguish between different sub- types of salmonella,” Pro- fessor Lan said.
“It will need to be vali- dated using samples in health, environment and food industry settings.
These include cooking eggs until the white sets and yolk begins to thick- en; washing hands with soap and water after han- dling uncooked eggs; not buying cracked or dirty eggs; and storing eggs in the fridge and inside the carton they were pur- chased in.
UNSW School of Bio- technology and Biomo-
Five salmonella sub- types known as serotypes caused more than 85 per- cent of the infections in 2017.
UNSW Science PhD candidate and first author Xiaomei Zhang said the new detection method could identify the five most common salmonella serotypes and would be crucial to help control the spread of infection during outbreaks.
“It’s important to detect the different serotypes be- cause some are more like-
Sunny side up (author’s preference), ready to eat. medium or even over hard. Ready to eat.
Chooks love gardening
GARDENING Aus- tralia’s Costa Georgi- adis said his chooks are pretty happy.
the school of colouring between the lines, they spread the mulch out- side the garden beds,” he said.
There are pre-made coops on wheels, which can move across the yard so the chooks are not fixed in one point.
Like the rest of Aus- tralia, the gardening guru is spending more time at home and, un- surprisingly, in his backyard.
“But hey, they’re hap- py.”
In terms of space, a smaller coop is OK as long as the chickens have space they can be let out to roam around in.
“The chooks are spending a lot more time in the broader gar- den and actually out on the street as I do work on my street garden,” Costa said.
At the same time there was a run on toilet pa- per, chicken breeders around the country were also being inun- dated.
About 10 square me- tres is a good guide.
“Their definition of lockdown is free range.” These are troubling times, but for Costa there is a big silver lin- ing, and that’s seeing how many people are getting back into their
If you do want to get some chooks, consider how you will keep them.
“That would be enough to have a cou- ple of chickens, and it’s nicer to have two rather than one, to keep each other company.”
If you’re looking to buy some chickens, chances are you’re not alone.
gardens.
To help you make the
most of it, Costa has some advice on chooks. Costa’s chooks like a bit of gardening them- selves, especially when he tries to put the mulch
out.
“They didn’t go to
It’s better to buy two chickens, Costa says.
Page 8 – National Poultry Newspaper, May 2020
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