Abstract
An outbreak of food poisoning occurred in nursing welfare facilities for elderly people in the Miyagi prefecture on August 2005. Salmonella entericasubsp. enterica serovar Montevideo (S. Montevideo) was isolated from the stool of patients, leftover salad and white radish sprouts. It was determined that the white radish sprouts produced by a certain sprouts grower were the causative food. The amount of bacterium intake per personwas assumed to be about 10, 000 MPN or less, because of the 960 MPN/g of isolates from white radish sprouts. Simultaneously outbreak strains of S. Montevideo were isolated from commercial white radish sprouts produced by the sprout grower and from the stools of other sporadic salmonellosis patients in the prefecture. As a result of PFGE analysis, these isolated strains were thought to be of the same origin. This shows that the white radish sprout may have been associated with both food poisoning outbreak and sporadic infections.
