Summary
Despite accounting for the major causes of foodborne outbreaks, enteric viruses have received comparatively less attention than other foodborne pathogens and thus, virological quality of process water used by the produce industry has received limited attention. As water disinfection is one of the most critical processing steps in vegetable production aimed at preventing cross-contamination, the main purpose of this proposal is to assess the risk of infectious viruses in process water under several scenarios by using viability PCR and correlate their occurrence with the presence of coliphages, which has been suggested as viral indicator. Additionally, this project will investigate the efficacy of the most common disinfection agents used in processing facilities to avoid cross-contamination during washing. Operational conditions and critical parameters will be established for each washing system needed for the inactivation of enteric viruses and coliphages. The validation activities proposed in this project will contribute to get insight if selected disinfectant conditions are capable of effectively controlling the potential presence of human enteric viruses under commercial conditions of process wash water disinfection and the potential use of coliphages as viral indicators. This proposal will contribute to the understanding of enteric viruses as a potential risk to produce-borne outbreaks.
