Comparison of phenotypic and genotypic markers for characterization of an outbreak of Salmonella serotype Havana in captive raptors

[Aims] To establish a typing method for tracing the epidemic relationship of 16 strains of Salmonella serotype Havana isolated from captive raptors showing no symptomatology and residing in a wildlife hospital in Spain.[Methods and Results] Antimicrobial susceptibility testing, ribotyping, pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) methodology were applied. Ten unrelated strains of serotype Havana were included as a control group to provide a basis of for the efficiency of the different markers used. All outbreak-related strains were resistant to nalidixic acid and streptomycin and showed the same ripotype, pulsotype and AFLP pattern.[Conclusions] This is the first time that AFLP analysis has been tested with serotype Havana isolates and it has demonstrated to be the most useful epidemiological tool for discriminating between unrelated and outbreak-related strains of this serotype. The results obtained suggest that all the Salmonella serotype Havana isolates represented a common outbreak strain whose origin of contamination could not be established although it is thought that it was the poultry meat used for raptors'diet.[Significance and Impact of the Study] Our study suggests the importance of microbiological analysis of these products in order to prevent contamination and dissemination of Salmonellae in this kind of Hospital.This work has been supported by the grant 13/99 of the Universidad San Pablo CEU.Peer reviewe