With recent news that Denmark's chickens have been declared salmonella-free by the European Food Safety Agency survey (EFPA), poultry producers are once again alarmed by the reported export of live chickens infected with salmonella.

According to Gunder Jensen, chairman of the independent poultry producers' organisation DFP, poultry producers that repeatedly have problems with salmonella should be closed down and not be allowed to export their chicken.

Jensen says that there were 26 salmonella outbreaks in Denmark in 2009 but these were not registered as salmonella outbreaks by the authorities as the infected chicken were exported to be slaughtered outside of Denmark.

Since October 2009, Denmark has suffered two big outbreaks of salmonella poisoning from Danish sausages. Four people have died as a result of eating 'medister' sausage, and at least 79 have been hospitalised with stomach infections, according to the national disease control centre Statens Serum Institut.

Investigators have traced the deadly bacteria to two pork slaughterhouses in Jutland and Zealand. However, Dr Kare Molbak of the Statens Serum Institut says they can't be absolutely sure the salmonella originated only in those two spots. The problem has become more widespread in the nation's pork industry.