Outbreak of Salmonella enterica serotype Poona in infants linked to persistent Salmonella contamination in an infant formula manufacturing facility, France, August 2018 to February 2019

Gabrielle Jones (1) , María Pardos de La Gándara (2) , Laura Herrera-Leon (3) , Silvia Herrera-Leon (3) , Carmen Varela Martinez (3) , Roselyne Hureaux-Roy (4) , Yasmine Abdallah (4) , Athinna Nisavanh (1) , Laetitia Fabre (2) , Charlotte Renaudat (2) , Joël Mossong (5) , Wesley Mattheus (6) , Cécile Huard (7) , Caroline Le Borgne (8) , Henriette de Valk (1) , François-Xavier Weill (2) , Nathalie Jourdan-da Silva (1)

1 Santé publique France - French National Public Health Agency [Saint-Maurice, France]
2 CNR-ESS - Centre National de Référence - National Reference Center Escherichia coli, Shigella et Salmonella
3 CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP)
4 Ministère de l'économie et des finances
5 LNS - Laboratoire National de Santé [Luxembourg]
6 Sciensano [Bruxelles]
7 Cocom - Commission communautaire commune de Bruxelles
8 Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé [Paris, France]

We describe a Salmonella Poona outbreak involving 31 infant cases in France. Following outbreak detection on 18 January 2019, consumption of rice-based infant formula manufactured at a facility in Spain was identified as the probable cause, leading to a recall on 24 January. Whole genome sequencing analysis linked present outbreak isolates to a 2010-11 S. Poona outbreak in Spain associated with formula manufactured in the same facility, indicating a persistent source of contamination.

Keywords: France; Poona; Salmonella; outbreak; persistent contamination; powdered infant formula; whole genome sequencing

Domains: Bacteriology

Gabrielle Jones, María Pardos de La Gándara, Laura Herrera-Leon, Silvia Herrera-Leon, Carmen Varela Martinez, et al.. Outbreak of Salmonella enterica serotype Poona in infants linked to persistent Salmonella contamination in an infant formula manufacturing facility, France, August 2018 to February 2019. Eurosurveillance, 2019, 24 (13), ⟨10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2019.24.13.1900161⟩. ⟨pasteur-02482002⟩