Genomic surveillance ofSalmonella entericaserotype Minnesota strains from poultry products imported into South Africa

Salmonella entericaserotype Minnesota (S.Minnesota) has recently emerged as a predominant serotype in poultry farming operations. Genomic surveillance efforts concentrated primarily in Europe have been used to evaluate food safety risks associated withS.Minnesota in imported poultry/poultry products. However, the burden imposed byS.Minnesota on consumers in sub-Saharan Africa is not understood. Here, we used whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to characterize 36S.Minnesota strains from raw poultry imported into South Africa, specifically: (i) 11 strains isolated at port-of-entry, and (ii) 25 strains from imported poultry in South African supermarkets. While all 36 strains belonged to the same sequence type (ST548), multiple ST548 lineages were present among poultry products. Comparison of the 36 strains sequenced here to all publicly available, high-quality ST548 genomes (n= 228, from Enterobase) identified several closely related public genomes (<30 core SNPs), including strains isolated previously from South American poultry imported into the United Kingdom. Notably, a cluster consisting of 14 highly similar genomes sequenced here (0 core SNPs) uniquely possessedbla_CTX-M-8. A search of plasmids in public databases, alongside antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes from >1.9 million bacterial genomes, revealed that this cluster harboredbla_CTX-M-8on an IncI1 plasmid, which we hypothesize was acquired recently, fromEscherichia coli. Overall, our study provides insight into the intercontinental dissemination ofS.Minnesota and its associated AMR determinants via the global poultry trade.