An Improved Medium for the Detection of Salmonella and Shigella Species

摘要

The following describes our experi-ence in developing an improved mediumfor the detection of Salmonella andShigella species in clinical specimens.Initially, we attempted to build on pastimprovements of enteric plating agarscontaining the surfactant Niaproof 4,formerly known as Tergitol 4. However,despite their broad application for detec-tion of Salmonella species in food safetyand veterinary medical diagnostics (1-4),Niaproof 4-supplemented (NS) entericplating agars are limited for use onhuman clinical specimens because theydo not adequately support the growthof Shigella species. Our goal was todevelop an NS-type agar that would besensitive for detecting Shigella as wellas Salmonella species and thus be appro-priate for the diagnosis of two majorhuman bacterial enteropathogens.