Food contamination incident linked to Salmonella Enteritidis ST11 in egg-based products

Salmonella enterica remains one of the leading causes of foodborne outbreaks in the European Union. Salmonella Enteritidis is the serovar most frequently reported in outbreak settings, with eggs and egg products representing major vehicles of infection. The predominant sequence type, ST11, is globally distributed and comprises several phylogenetic lineages characterised by limited genomic diversity within lineages, that can complicate outbreak investigations by resulting in highly similar whole genome sequencing (WGS) profiles among epidemiologically unrelated isolates.