Control of Viral Contamination of Food and Environment

Cliver, Dean O.

The majority of microbial agents transmitted to people via food and the environment are human enteric viruses, produced either in the intestines or the liver. They are shed in human feces (noroviruses also in vomitus) in a broad range of circumstances, and they are relatively stable outside the host. Contamination may either be controlled by preventing its occurrence or by inactivating the contaminating virus. Non-enteric viruses are less often transmitted via foods and are generally less environmentally stable. A few available vaccines are able to prevent fecal shedding but are not yet fully exploited. Viruses in casually disposed feces undergo slow inactivation in the environment, either by physical loss of ability to infect or through microbial action. Viruscontaining feces disposed via the water-carriage toilet may be eliminated by proper treatment and disinfection of the wastewater. The most effective antiviral measures applicable to foods are cooking and hand washing. Detection methods are more useful after the fact, in investigating outbreaks and devising preventive measures, than as preemptive means to preclude transmission.