While a salmonella vaccine is in the works, researchers don't think it's suited for countries like the United States (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control)
Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:
Transcript
Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:
Salmonella poisoning affects about 20-million people worldwide each year and causes 200,000 deaths. A vaccine might sound like a good idea.
Arthur Thompson has been working on one at the Institute of Food Research in England. His group has found that salmonella relies on glucose for its survival. So they’re designing a vaccine to use that against the bacteria.
But Thompson thinks a salmonella vaccine should not be used to solve a problem that industrialized nations can already prevent.
“I don’t think it would be appropriate really, for something like this. I mean, I think in this case, it’s more a case of preventing the contamination in the first place, really.”
Thompson says the vaccine is better suited for people in developing nations where salmonella causes still causes typhoid fever.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.