title: Surveillance for human Salmonella infections in the United States.
abstract: Surveillance for human Salmonella infections plays a critical role in understanding and controlling foodborne illness due to Salmonella. Along with its public health partners, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has several surveillance systems that collect information on Salmonella infections in the United States. The National Salmonella Surveillance System, begun in 1962, receives reports of laboratory-confirmed Salmonella infections through state public health laboratories. Salmonella outbreaks are reported by state and local health departments through the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Reporting System, which became a Web-based, electronic system (eFORS) in 2001. PulseNet facilitates the detection of clusters of Salmonella infections through standardized molecular subtyping (DNA "fingerprinting") of isolates and maintenance of "fingerprint" databases. The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System for Enteric Bacteria (NARMS) monitors antimicrobial resistance in Salmonella by susceptibility testing of every 20th Salmonella isolate received by state and local public health laboratories. FootNet is an active surveillance system that monitors Salmonella infections in sentinel areas, providing population-based estimates of infection rates. Efforts are underway to electronically link all of the Salmonella surveillance systems at CDC to facilitate optimum use of available data and minimize duplication.
authors.affiliation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. bas5@cdc.gov
authors.forename: Bala
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Swaminathan
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fields
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018563:Disease Notification; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012480:Salmonella Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology