Food Safety in Europe

As in previous years, the two most commonly reported Salmonella serovars in 2013 were S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium, representing 39.5 percent and 20.2 percent, respectively, of all reported serovars in confirmed human cases.

In 2013, the EFSA/ECDC reported that 27 member states confirmed 1,763 human cases of listeriosis. I found this here now, which weirdly duplicates a form of “report.” But the correct version of this sentence is as follows in green:

In 2013, 27 member states confirmed 1,763 human cases of listeriosis, reports EFSA/ECDC.

The EU notification rate was 0.44 cases per 100,000 population, which represented an 8.6 percent increase compared with 2012. Sadly, 191 deaths due to listeriosis were reported in 2013, with France reporting the highest number, 64 cases. The EU case-fatality rate was 15.6 percent among the 1,228 confirmed cases with known outcome.

A total of 13 Listeria outbreaks were reported by seven member states and one non-member state in 2013, which was reported as slightly higher than in the previous years. Eight of the outbreaks reported in 2013 were supported by strong evidence, where crustaceans, shellfish and mollusks, and products thereof, were implicated in three outbreaks.

According to EFSA/ECDC, 6,043 confirmed cases of verocytotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC) infections were reported in 2013. The EU notification rate was 1.59 cases per 100,000 population, which was 5.9 percent higher than in 2012. (The EU notification rate in the two consecutive years following the large outbreak in 2011 was higher than before the outbreak, possibly an effect of increased awareness and of more laboratories testing also for other serogroups than O157, the EFSA/ECDC report states.) In 2013, 13 deaths due to VTEC infection were reported in the EU, which resulted in an EU case-fatality rate of 0.36 percent among the 3,582 confirmed cases for which this information was provided.

The most commonly reported VTEC serogroup in 2013 was, as in previous years, O157 (48.9 percent of cases with known serogroup). Serogroup O26, the second most common in 2013, increased by 65.1 percent between 2011 and 2013. The proportion of non-typable VTEC strains doubled in the same period. The serogroup that increased the most between 2011 and 2013 was O182, which EFSA/ECDC says was reported by five countries in 2013 compared to only one in 2011 and 2012.

Biohazard Toolbox

In light of ongoing concerns over biological contamination issues, EFSA recently asked its Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ) to evaluate the performance and data requirements of the available risk ranking tools, investigate methodologies for introducing uncertainty and variability in the risk ranking models, and design and develop a risk ranking toolbox for the BIOHAZ Panel.

Effective Jan. 15, 2015, the BIOHAZ Panel identified eight tools relevant to risk ranking applications of biological hazards in food. These are decision trees; the U.S. FDA risk ranking tool: the pathogen–produce pair attribution risk ranking tool (P3ARRT); the EFSA food of non-animal origin risk ranking tool (EFoNAO-RRT); Risk Ranger; microHibro; swift quantitative microbiological risk assessment (sQMRA); FDA-iRISK; and the ECDC Burden of Communicable Diseases in Europe (BCoDE) toolkit.

Image Credit: Bord Bia – Irish Food Boar

“The toolbox is primarily intended for experts of the Panel on Biological Hazards, but could also be used by EFSA’s other panels and national food safety authorities, as it will support a timely and transparent risk ranking in many food applications,” says Ernesto Liebana Criado, PhD, the acting head of the EFSA Biological Hazards and Contaminants Unit. “Moreover, experts have also assessed the available risk ranking tools and investigated how uncertainty can be taken into account in risk ranking models.”

In a parallel exercise, experts have additionally developed a simple decision tool (different from the eight proper risk ranking tools in the toolbox) that will help risk managers and risk assessors select the most appropriate methodology depending on the risk ranking question, according to Caroline Merten, a scientific officer with EFSA’s Scientific Committee and Emerging Risks Unit who coordinated the exercise.