Evaluation of the protection against norovirus afforded by Official Control monitoring of shellfish production areas under EU Regulations

Theme: RegulationEC Regulation 854/2004 sets out requirements for the classification of bivalve mollusc harvesting areas in Europe. Classification is based on the faecal pollution status of sites as determined by the E. coli... [ view full abstract ]

Theme: Regulation

EC Regulation 854/2004 sets out requirements for the classification of bivalve mollusc harvesting areas in Europe. Classification is based on the faecal pollution status of sites as determined by the E. coli content of the shellfish flesh.  Whilst epidemiological data suggests that traditional bacterial causes of gastroenteritis associated with bivalve shellfish are infrequent, norovirus and other enterically transmitted viral infections continue to occur.  It is well established that determination of E. coli in bivalve shellfish may be a poor predicator of virus risk particularly in individual samples.  There are a number of reasons for this, including the variable occurrence of E. coli and norovirus in polluting sources, the relative resistance of viruses to sewage treatment and environmental stressors along with their different uptake and elimination kinetics in bivalves.  This paper will compare official control shellfish E. coli monitoring data across a number of sites in the UK against norovirus data obtained from previously published studies. It will address the question of how well the current official control monitoring predicts comparative norovirus risk at a site and whether the current standards could be refined to improve protection of public health for norovirus.