[Comparing the results of the serological detection of Salmonella antibodies in blood serum and meat juice from different muscles from slaughter pigs].

The German Salmonella Monitoring Programme started by the QS-System in 2002 (Blaha, 2004) is mandatory due to the so-called "Salmonella Regulation for Pigs" since 2007 (Anonym, 2007). The Regulation does not clearly prescribe the specific muscle which is to be taken as source of the meat juice. Thus, at different slaughter plants meat samples are also taken from different muscles and several scientific papers describe various muscles as source of the meat juice, too. The objective of this study was to compare the serological results of meat juices from three different locations (diaphragm pillar, neck, belly muscle) to each other and to those of the blood serum from exactly the same animals. All samples were simultaneously tested for Salmonella antibodies by two serological tests (Salmo-type Pig Screen, LDL, Germany; HerdChek Swine Salmonella, IDEXX, Germany). Comparisons were carried out between the various sample kinds per animal and between the two test systems. The analysis of all results of the meat juices revealed in both test systems a clear decline of the OD% values from the diaphragm pillar to the neck to the belly muscle. The average OD% values of all samples were higher when measured by the HerdChek ELISA (IDEXX, Germany) than by the Salmotype ELISA (LDL, Germany), especially in blood serum. Since the results of the meat juice samples gained from the diaphragm pillar were in both test systems by far the closest to the results of the corresponding serum blood samples, it is recommended to amend the "Salmonella Regulation for Pigs" by prescribing meat from the diaphragm pillar as the only muscle for gaining meat juice.