Researchers at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Korea used the Concentrating Pipette to concentrate viral contaminants from 600 mL irrigation water sources to measure the prevalence of CrAssphage, an indicator organism that is associated with human fecal contamination, to correlate the presence of norovirus and hepatitis A contamination.
From their conclusions - crAssphages were frequently detected in a variety of environmental water sources including irrigation and stream water. Notably, a significant correlation was observed between the presence of crAssphage and human norovirus contamination in fresh leafy greens. Furthermore, the concentration of crAssphage in the tested samples was consistently found to be at least 2 log10 units higher than that of norovirus, with over 70% of norovirus-positive samples also contaminated with crAssphage.
These findings suggest that crAssphages may serve as reliable indicators of fecal-borne virus contamination and potentially of foodborne viruses, such as norovirus and hepatitis A virus. The application of crAssphage detection as biological markers could significantly enhance the safety of food and water supplies.
Read the Publication –
Evaluation of crAssphages as a potential marker of human viral contamination in environmental water and fresh leafy greens Soo Hwan Suh, et al.
Frontiers in Microbiology (Food Microbiology) Volume 15 2024
