EXPERIMENTS ON THE BEHAVIOR OF SALMONELLA-ENTERITIDIS IN EGG-WHITE

In vitro experiments to study characteristics of 10 Salmonella (S.) enteritidis strains in albumen of eggs laid on the day the experiments started showed the ability of the pathogens to survive for at least 21 days during storage at 10, 20 and 30-degrees-C respectively. Five of the 10 strains could not be cultivated after storage for 21 days at a temperature of 10-degrees-C with an initial germ count of 10(2) to 10(3)/ml. Higher temperatures inhibit the proliferation of S. enteritidis, but do not suppress it completely. The germ count gradually increased to about 10(6) at 20-degrees-C and about 10(8) pathogens/ml at 30-degrees-C. The ability of the white from eggs stored for 4 weeks without cooling to inhibit proliferation of S. enteritidis was clearly impaired.