Summary Report of Joint Scientific Workshop on Foodborne Viruses

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Published on: Thu, 20 Oct 2016 13:45:15 +0200

This report describes the outcome of a workshop held jointly by the Food Standards Agency UK and the European Food Safety Authority on foodborne viruses. The workshop gathered together academics, clinicians, veterinarians, food industry specialists and regulators with established expertise in epidemiology, detection and control of norovirus, hepatitis A virus and hepatitis E virus in foodstuffs. The primary objective of the workshop was to identify priority areas for future research funding in order to maximise efficiency and to benefit from synergies provided by interdisciplinary collaborations. This report describes the methodology employed to rank and prioritise research needs and the main workshop conclusions. The conclusions identified that the highest priorities were development and validation of methods for assessing hepatitis E virus infectivity, establishment of the relationship between the detection of norovirus in food and public health risk, development of methods for evaluating norovirus and hepatitis A virus infectivity in food samples, standardisation of methods for hepatitis E virus detection in meat and meat products, and determination of the burden of hepatitis E in human populations in Europe.