Salmonella Infection in Turtles: A Risk for Staff Involved in Wildlife Management?

Monitoring of infections that may be transmitted to humans by animals in wildlife rescue centres is very important in order to protect the staff engaged in rehabilitation practices. may be a natural inhabitant of the intestinal tract of turtles, rarely causing disease. This may represent a potential risk for humans, increasing the sanitary risk for operators in wildlife rescue centres. In this paper, the occurrence of non-typhoidal among terrestrial turtles housed in a wildlife rescue centre in Southern Italy was investigated, in order to assess the serovars more frequently carried by turtles and identify those that may represent a risk for operators involved in wildlife management. Sixty-nine adult turtles (, , , and ) were tested. Detection and serotyping of strains were performed according to ISO 6579-1 and ISO/TR 6579-3:2013, respectively. The distribution of spp. was significantly higher in than in other species, independent of the age and gender of the animals. Two different species, and , three subspecies (, , ), and five different serovars (Hermannswerder, Abony, Ferruch, Richmond, Vancouver) within the group subspecies were identified. Different combinations of types were simultaneously found in specimens of . Most of detected types may represent a potential risk for public health. Adopting correct animal husbandry procedures and informing on potential sanitary risks may be useful for minimising the risk of transmission of to workers involved in wildlife management.