Dr. Doris Müller-Doblies, Elanco's Global Food Safety Consultant, used the AviPro Excellence Forum 2026 to make a measured point about Salmonella: control programmes can deliver major progress, but eradication remains difficult and the gains can be fragile.

She noted that European programmes combining vaccination, flock testing, official oversight and slaughterhouse controls have substantially reduced poultry prevalence and related human cases. But lower incidence does not remove the need for discipline. Where vaccination is incomplete, biosecurity weakens, rodent control is insufficient or infected breeder flocks contribute to vertical transmission, the risk can return.

The scale of the challenge helps explain why. The source material for the forum refers to around 2,500 Salmonella strains, while current vaccines primarily target serovars of greatest public-health concern. It means that even effective vaccination does not turn a complex and changing pathogen landscape into a closed case.

Müller-Doblies stressed that vaccination can reduce infection risk and bacterial spread, but it may not be sufficient on its own when environmental challenge is high. Salmonella can be carried by animal species beyond poultry and through non-animal food sources, so the response has to reach further than a single farm or a single intervention.

For poultry businesses, this is a value-chain management issue as much as a veterinary one. Breeder operations, hatcheries, commercial flocks and processing sites need compatible control approaches. Biosecurity, cleaning and disinfection, rodent management and regular monitoring are not adjuncts to a vaccination plan; they are part of how its result is maintained.

The business case is therefore rooted in continuity. Every avoided Salmonella case can protect animal and human health, while also reducing the operational and food-safety risk attached to the production chain. Müller-Doblies' conclusion was not that eradication is out of reach forever, but that lasting progress requires consistent prevention after the initial improvement has been achieved.