Prevalence of Salmonella in Chicken, Beef and Pork Meat in Mexico City

The food of animal origin is often involved in salmonellosis outbreaks; contamination with Salmonella can begin on breeding sites during meat processing and the distribution channels. A total of 2,592 samples of chicken, pork and beef ground meat (864 samples of each type) acquired in travelling markets and supermarkets located in the Iztapalapa delegation of Mexico City were analyzed. (Salmonella was isolated from 511 of all the analyzed samples (19.71%), from which 244 (47.75%), 152 (29.75%) and 115 (22.5%) correspond to chicken, beef and pork ground meat, respectively. The higher Salmonella isolation frequency was obtained during the spring-summer months. There was an increase in the Salmonella isolation frequency in chicken ground meat as compared to beef and pork ground meat. There were significant differences between the types of establishment where the higher Salmonella isolation frequency was observed in samples obtained from the travelling markets for the three types of ground meat. According to our results, the prevalence of Salmonella sp. in meat products was high which is the reason why adequate cooking of this meat in any of its forms is important, as well as avoiding a crosscontamination in order to reduce the risk of acquiring salmonellosis.