An extensive multi-country outbreak of multidrug-resistant monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium infection in 10 countries with 150 reported cases, predominantly affecting young children, has been linked to chocolate products produced by a large multinational company. Extensive withdrawals and recalls of multiple product lines have been undertaken. With Easter approaching, widespread product distribution and the vulnerability of the affected population, early and effective real-time sharing of microbiological and epidemiological information has been of critical importance in effectively managing this serious food-borne incident.
Keywords: Monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium; antimicrobial resistance profile; chocolate products; core-genome multi locus sequence typing; descriptive epidemiological evidence; multi-country collaboration; outbreak; whole genome sequencing.