Source attribution - a German approach for Salmonella spp.

Zoonoses have a major impact to human health. Salmonellosis is one of the most common and widely distributed foodborne diseases.Although, efforts to reduce the abundance of human salmonellosis cases in Germany seem to be effective (figure 1), there is an ongoing discussion about the importance of animal-related Salmonella agents to human infections. In Denmark 2004, Tine Hald presented a strong probabilistic tool to examine those relations, an EFSA recommended source attribution method based on a microbial subtyping approach (1). It allows to explore and to prioritize new intervention points to reduce Salmonella in the food chain and to proof the reliability of already operating strategies. Here, we present our first attempt to establish this method of source attribution for Germany and give a short insight into the model. Furthermore, emerging problems concerning required data shall be disclosed.