At the laboratory samples shall be kept refrigerated until examination. Examination shall start within 48 hours following the time of receipt of the samples and within four days from the date of sampling.
Dust samples shall be analysed separately. However, the competent authority may decide to pool them with the pair of boot swabs for analysis.
The sample shall be swirled to fully saturate it and culturing shall be continued by using the detection method set out in point 3.2.
The two pairs of boot swabs shall be carefully unpacked to avoid dislodging adherent faecal material, pooled and placed in 225 ml of buffered peptone water (BPW) pre-warmed to room temperature, or 225 ml of diluent is added directly to the two pairs of boot swabs in their container as received in the laboratory.
The boot swabs shall be fully submersed in BPW to provide sufficient free liquid around the sample for migration of Salmonella away from the sample and therefore more BPW may be added if necessary.
If EN/ISO standards on the preparation of faeces for the detection of Salmonella are agreed on, they shall replace the provisions on the preparation of samples set out in this point as appropriate.
The detection of Salmonella spp. shall be carried out according to EN ISO 6579-1.]
Textual Amendments
At least one isolate from each positive sample taken by the competent authority shall be serotyped, following the current White-Kauffmann-Le Minor scheme.
Food business operators shall ensure that for all isolates, it is at least excluded that they do not belong to the serotypes Salmonella enteritidis and Salmonella typhimurium.
Alternative methods may be used instead of the methods for detection and serotyping provided for in points 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 of this Annex, if validated in accordance with EN ISO 16140-2 (for alternative detection methods).]
The competent authority shall ensure that at least one isolated strain of Salmonella serotypes from sampling as part of official controls per house and per year is stored for future phagetyping or antimicrobial susceptibility testing, using established methods for culture collection, which must ensure integrity of the strains for a minimum period of two years from the date of the analysis.
The competent authority may decide that isolates from sampling by food business operators shall also be stored for future phagetyping or antimicrobial susceptibility testing to provide for isolates to be tested in accordance with Article 2 of Commission Decision 2007/407/EC(1).