Managing leafy green safety from adenoviruses and enteroviruses in irrigation water

Jennifer Pearce-Walker, Kelly R. Bright, Robert A. Canales, Amanda M. Wilson and Marc P. Verhougstraete

Agricultural Water Management, 2020, vol. 240, issue C

Abstract: Irrigation water regulations use Escherichia coli as an indicator of fecal contamination. However, it is well documented that bacterial indicators may not be ideal for predicting viral pathogen presence. Viral pathogens survive relatively long periods in water, are resistant to treatment processes, and cause a large number of illnesses annually. Therefore, this study explored the application of quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) to understand adenovirus and enterovirus concentration limits in irrigation water to achieve an acceptable annual risk estimate of 1 infection per 10,000 exposures. A two-step approach was used to define target viral concentrations: 1) a risk model describing infection from consuming irrigated leafy greens and 2) optimization of the risk model using Monte Carlo simulation to define viral concentrations with an output risk value of 1 × 10−4. Our QMRA estimates target concentrations for adenoviruses and enteroviruses would be 6.9 × 10−3 and 1.5 genome copies/100 mL irrigation water, respectively. Improving the accuracy of the risk model will require a more robust survey of enteric viruses in irrigation waters and dose-response models specific for adenoviruses and enteroviruses present throughout the farm-to-fork continuum.. This research contributes to the important step of adapting irrigation water monitoring practices to more accurately represent viral pathogens’ role in foodborne outbreaks.

Keywords: Quantitative microbial risk assessment; Produce safety; Leafy greens; Irrigation water; Adenovirus; Enterovirus; Food safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377419319705
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:240:y:2020:i:c:s0378377419319705

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106272

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().