Concerns grow over norovirus
Food safety experts fear a common form of food poisoning caused by a virus associated with food handlers’ poor hygiene could be far more widespread than previously thought.
Dr Bob Adak of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said 14 outbreaks (17%) of infectious intestinal diseases (IID) in ready-to-eat (RTE) fruit and vegetables between 1992 and 2007 had been attributed to Norovirus. But he said the true figure was probably more like 35 (42%). He was speaking at a presentation to the Food Standards Agency’s Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF).
This compares with 40 cases (48%) with bacterial origins, such as salmonellas (19); campylobacter (5), shigellas (4), Vero-cytotoxin producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) (2), and others (10).
ACMSF member Paul Hunter, professor of Health Protection at the University of East Anglia, School of Medicine Health Policy and Practice, estimated only one in 1,500 cases of Norovirus were being reported. “So if outbreaks happen in the general community it is very unlikely they will be detected.” As a consequence the true figures of illness are likely to be “substantially greater”
“Surveillance of general outbreaks of IID mainly highlights breakdowns in hygiene in commercial kitchens,” according to Adak. However, he also noted: “It is likely that RTE fruit and vegetables are subject to cross contamination and contamination from infected food handlers in domestic kitchens.”
Norovirus - also known as ‘winter vomiting disease’ due to its seasonality and symptoms - is the most common cause of infectious gastroenteritis in England and Wales, according to the HPA. While the symptoms are quite violent (and unpleasant) they tend to be relatively short-lived and not fatal, although deaths have occurred in some instances.
