Resumo

PuseNet is an International molecular subtyping network for foodborne disease surveillance, developed by the CDC in 1996, being nowdays composed of seven regional laboratory networks all over the world. As a member of the PulseNet Latin American and Caribbean Regional network since 2004, the Instituto Adolfo Lutz, central public health laboratory in São Paulo State, is currently certified for PFGE gel manufacturing and BioNumerics gel analysis of Salmonella, Shigella sonnei, and Escherichia coli O157 H:7. The participants of PulseNet Latin American and Caribbean perform standardized pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) protocols and analysis generating data that is incorporated into Regional Databases. The main goal of this study was to report the PulseNet Salmonella database of the most frequent Salmonella serotypes and the ones associated to foodborne outbreaks, isolated in São Paulo State between 2004 and 2012. The isolates were serotyped according to White-Kauffmann-Le Minor sheme. The PulseNet standardized protocol was used for PFGE subtyping the Salmonella isolates by using XbaI restriction endonuclease. Dendrograms were produced by using the Dice coefficient and the unweighted pair group method arithmetic averages (UPGMA). The results of the relationship and distribution of genetic subtyping of Salmonella serotypes during a period of 08 years has demonstrated to confirm outbreak isolates by their indistinguishable PFGE patterns, to detect a possible outbreak by temporal clustering of unrelted cases, to separate outbreak from sporadic cases, to exchange eletronic information with other PulseNet laboratories in real time and also to detect emerging strains in the region . The establishiment of continuous PulseNet databases , as the ones for Salmonella presented in this report , represents an important epidemiological tool for the laboratories based surveillance of the Salmonella serotypes analysed for the prevention and control of foodborne outbreaks in Brazil and other countries.