Quantitative Methods for the Prioritization of Foods Implicated in the Transmission of Hepatititis E to Humans in Italy

Foods

Ornella Moro¹  Elisabetta Suffredini¹  Gaia Scavia¹  Marco Isopi²  Maria Elena Tosti³  Pietro Schembri⁴ 

[1] Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health, National Institute of Health, 00161 Rome, Italy;Department of Mathematics, University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy;National Center for Global Health, National Institute of Health, 00161 Rome, Italy;Regional Department for Health Activities and Epidemiological Observatory of the Sicilian Region, 90145 Palermo, Italy;

关键词: hepatitis E virus;    epidemiology;    mathematical modeling;    food safety;   

DOI  :  10.3390/foods11010087

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Hepatitis E is considered an emerging foodborne disease in Europe. Several types of foods are implicated in the transmission of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) to humans, in particular, pork and wild boar products. We developed a parametric stochastic model to estimate the risk of foodborne exposure to HEV in the Italian population and to rank the relevance of pork products with and without liver (PL and PNL, respectively), leafy vegetables, shellfish and raw milk in HEV transmission. Original data on HEV prevalence in different foods were obtained from a recent sampling study conducted in Italy at the retail level. Other data were obtained by publicly available sources and published literature. The model output indicated that the consumption of PNL was associated with the highest number of HEV infections in the population. However, the sensitivity analysis showed that slight variations in the consumption of PL led to an increase in the number of HEV infections much higher than PNL, suggesting that PL at an individual level are the top risky food. Uncertainty analysis underlined that further characterization of the pork products preparation and better assessment of consumption data at a regional level is critical information for fine-tuning the most risky implicated food items in Italy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown