[Microbiologia Medica 2021; 36:9354] [page 7] Summary In the European Union between 2008 and 2017 there was a statistically significant decrease in the confirmed cases of salmo- nellosis. Nevertheless, it represents the first cause of food-borne outbreaks and the secondly most frequently reported zoonosis. Considering the pathogen diffusion and clinical consequences, monitoring the incidence of Salmonella spp. infections is a prior- ity for public health. The study is aimed at describing the temporal trend of prevalence of Salmonella spp. positive tested and serotypes characteristics of the isolates by L’Aquila hospital labo- ratory microbiological analysis in 2011-2018, with a focus on the epidemic phase occurred from October 2013 to May 2014. The survey is a case series report, with a retrospective design. During the period considered, 220 infected carriers were identi- fied, in particular 160 positive samples for Salmonella enterica serogroup B, so it was the main group causing salmonellosis in the area of L’Aquila both in the epidemic period and in the non-epi- demic period. Moreover, the proportion of cases in early paedi- atric age (from one to five years) resulted statistically higher in the epidemic period than in the non-epidemic period. About the pos- sible causes of the outbreak, the hypothesis of an environmental contamination seems to be plausible. Introduction Almost 60% of the most frequent human pathogens has an animal origin (23) and the majority of food zoonosis are caused by Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria (10). Zoonoses are infec- tious diseases transmitted by animals to humans directly by con- tact with the animal or indirectly especially through contaminated water or food consumption (19). In the European Union (EU) between 2008 and 2017 there was a statistically significant decrease in the confirmed cases of salmonellosis (10) and, despite the constant decrease in the number of cases, salmonellosis repre- sents the first cause of food-borne outbreaks and the second most frequently reported zoonosis. Recently, it has been estimated the overall incidence of human salmonellosis is 19.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants each year in the general EU population (6) and 7.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Italy (27). Salmonella spp. are able to adapt to environmental conditions significantly different from their normal growth range (6). Infections caused by Salmonella spp. are distinguished in typhoid forms (S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi, responsible for typhoid fever and enteric fever in general), in which mankind represents the only reservoir of the microorganism, and non-typhoid forms, caused by the so-called minor Salmonella (as S. Typhimurium and S. Enteritidis), responsible for clinical forms with a prevailing gas- troenteric manifestation. Indeed, gastroenteritis is the most com- mon worldwide manifestation of Salmonella infections (26). The most affected by salmonellosis are very young (in developmental age) or very old individuals and those with reduced immunologi- cal defenses (20). Considering the pathogen diffusion and clinical consequences, monitoring the incidence of Salmonella spp. infections is a prior- ity for public health. Epidemiological studies have been carried out in terms of surveillance of notified clinical cases (12) as well as number of strains isolated in the routine activities of hospitals laboratories (28); in particular, various studies concerning the incidence of different Salmonella serogroups (15) and their pres- Correspondence: Maria Scatigna, University of l’Aquila, Piazzale Salvatore Tommasi 1, 67100 L’Aquila - Coppito (AQ), Italy. Tel.: +39.0862.434692 - Fax: +39.0862.433425. E-mail maria.scatigna@cc.univaq.it Key words: Salmonella spp., serogroup, biological samples, trend, out- break. Contributions: Torrelli V, Cesarini V and Scatigna M conceived the pre- sented idea. Cesarini V & Scatigna M developed the theory and per- formed the computations. Di Giulio E, Miconi G, Gentile F, Rosciano A, Tomei AR verified the analytical methods and contributed to data collection. Scatigna M encouraged A.B. to investigate the epidemiolog- ical aspect and supervised the findings of this work. All authors dis- cussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no potential conflict of interest. Funding: None. Received for publication: 15 September 2020. Revision received: 24 November 2020 Accepted for publication: 9 December 2020. © Copyright: the Author(s), 2021 Licensee PAGEPress, Italy Microbiologia Medica 2021; 36:9354 doi:10.4081/mm.2021.9354 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (by-nc 4.0) which permits any non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provid- ed the original author(s) and source are credited. Journal of Entomological and Acarological Research 2012; volume 44:e Microbiologia Medica 2021; volume 36:9354 Case series of Salmonella spp. infections confirmed by culture test at the hospital clinical laboratory in L’Aquila (Italy), years 2011-2018 Vittoriano Torrelli, 1 Valentina Cesarini, 1 Elisa Di Giulio, 2 Gianfranca Miconi, 2 Francesco Gentile, 2 Alessia Rosciano, 2 Anna Rita Tomei, 2 Pamela Renzetti, 1 Maria Scatigna 1 1 Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of l’Aquila; 2 San Salvatore Hospital Clinical Laboratory - Local Health Office (ASL 1) of l’Aquila, Italy Non-commercial use only