It was at the end of December last year that a test result showed salmonella infection in the packing plant at the egg producer. At that time, 164,000 laying hens had to be killed. Now there are once again alarms about new suspected infection in the packing plant.
Maud Cedergren runs the farm and she confirms that it is a suspected case of salmonella that has been found in the packing plant. The samples will now be grown in a laboratory.
"It has not been confirmed that it is salmonella, so it is still suspicious. We hope to get an answer by the end of the week, says Maud Cedergren.
The affected eggs stored in the packing plant were stopped from reaching consumers.
May be about old infection
According to the Swedish Board of Agriculture, it may be a case of infection that lingers from previous cases.
"When a company gets positive in the packing plant, they should make sure to stop the deliveries. They take care of that too – that's why they take these own samples," says Katarina Gilen, Infection Control Manager at the Swedish Board of Agriculture.
The Swedish Board of Agriculture, which is responsible for sampling the chicken coops, says that there is no infection among the animals.
"It is not a new infection as far as we can judge from these frequent samplings that we have done. The latest test result from us was taken yesterday and it showed negative today, says Katarina Gilen.
Fewer samplings
The Swedish Board of Agriculture has sampled the animals frequently for a long period. At the same time, all eggs have undergone heat treatment to ensure that the eggs do not carry the infection. But just over a week and a half ago, the sampling was scaled down. The authority now continues to carry out sampling of the animals once a week.