Ukraine suffers large-scale outbreak of salmonellosis

Several batches of poultry belonging to Agromars, one of Ukraine’s largest poultry producers have been found to be contaminated with salmonella, according to the results of a scheduled inspection of the State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service (Gosvetsluzhba) of Ukraine.

Preliminary expert estimates suggest there may be about 30 thousand tonnes of chicken infected in total, making it the largest outbreak of salmonellosis ever recorded in the country.

Officials of the veterinary services of Ukraine noted that the inspection has been carried out only in particular batches of products, and now Gosvetsluzhba have to check all the available products of the company on the market, which could result in the volume of poultry meat found to be hazardous to the health of consumers increasing substantially.

According to the head of Gosvetsluzhbа, Ivan Bisyuk the contaminated products were withdrawn from sale on time and did not get into the free market. An investigation is being currently held to establish exactly how the infection occurred. Consumers have also been advised not to purchase the company’s products, at least until all the additional checks have concluded.

This is not the first outbreaks of salmonellosis in Ukraine over the past few months. On November 12 a similar situation occurred with Dnipropetrovsk poultry complex, whose products after, hitting the market, caused 14 cases of human poisoning. After this incident Gosvetsluzhba began actively checking all poultry products in the market for the presence of salmonella.