Surface disinfection tests with Salmonella and a putative indicator bacterium, mimicking worst-case scenarios in poultry houses

Surface disinfection studies mimicking worst-case scenarios in badly cleaned poultry houses were made with 3 bacterial isolates (Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella senftenberg, and Enterococcus faecalis), and 3 1% disinfectant solutions, formaldehyde (F; 24.5% vol/vol), glutaraldehyde/benzalkonium chloride (G; Bio Komplet Plus), and a peroxygen compound (P; Virkon S), with World Health Organization (WHO) standard hard water as a control.

Materials (concrete paving stones, steel feed chain links, wooden dowels, and jute egg belts) and organic matter found commonly in poultry houses (feed, fats, egg yolk) were used in the tests. Organic matter inoculated with high numbers of stationary phase cultures was added to materials and dried for 24 h at different temperatures (6, 11, 20, or 30degreesC), immersed in solutions for set time periods (5, 15, or 30 min), and dried again for 25 h (6, 11, or 30degreesC).

Then, traditional recovery procedures (using 10-fold dilutions until 10(-4), i.e., a most probable number method) were applied. For the 2 Salmonella isolates, the efficacy of the solutions was (in decreasing order): formaldehyde > glutaraldehyde/benzalkonium chloride > peroxygen compound > WHO hard water, except when feed chain links with fats were disinfected using 30degreesC before and after disinfection, for which the peroxygen compound seemed more effective.

Enterococcus faecalis was equally or less susceptible than S. enteritidis and S. senftenberg, indicating its suitability as an indicator bacterium. For the peroxygen compound, S. senftenberg was more susceptible than S. enteritidis in spite of higher minimum inhibitory concentrations to this disinfectant for the former.