 results. Stress and feedlot confinement also foster poor hygiene practices that can increase contamination.
Although the reported prevalence of salmonella is low, the morbidity and mortality caused by foodborne illness from salmonella is significant, and drug resistance is particularly concerning because outbreak strains found in beef have been resistant to several important clinical antibiotics, including first-line agents prescribed to treat salmonella and other infections. Among the recent, large multi-state outbreaks that have been caused by salmonella-contaminated ground beef, the strain responsible for the 2011 outbreak was notable for its resistance to multiple antibiotics, including amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, ampicillin, ceftriaxone, cefoxitin, kanamycin, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline. Ceftriaxone is an example of a recommended antibiotic prescribed for salmonella infections in humans, and strains resistant to those agents would be more difficult to treat, even in the hospital. FSIS has a performance standard of 7.5 per cent for salmonella in ground beef.