https://doi.org/10.4081/ijfs.2024.12725
Monitoring and preventing foodborne outbreaks: are we missing wastewater as a key data source?
Submitted: 16 June 2024
Accepted: 29 July 2024
Published: 10 October 2024
Accepted: 29 July 2024
Abstract Views: 427
PDF: 18
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: 63
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: 63
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All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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In 2022, the number of foodborne outbreaks in Europe increased by 43.9%, highlighting the need to improve surveillance systems and design outbreak predictive tools. This review aims to assess the scientific literature describing wastewater surveillance to monitor foodborne pathogens in association with clinical data. In the selected studies, the relationship between peaks of pathogen concentration in wastewater and reported clinical cases is described. Moreover, details on analytical methods to detect and quantify pathogens as well as wastewater sampling procedures are discussed. Few papers show a statistically significant correlation between high concentrations of foodborne pathogens in wastewater and the occurrence of clinical cases. However, monitoring pathogen concentration in wastewater looks like a promising and cost-effective strategy to improve foodborne outbreak surveillance. Such a strategy can be articulated in three steps, where the first one is testing wastewater with an untargeted method, like shotgun metagenomic, to detect microorganisms belonging to different domains. The second consists of testing wastewater with a targeted method, such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction, to quantify those specific pathogens that in the metagenomic dataset display an increasing trend or exceed baseline concentration thresholds. The third involves the integrated wastewater and clinical data analysis and modeling to find meaningful epidemiological correlations and make predictions.
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How to Cite
1.
Troja F, Indio V, Savini F, Seguino A, Serraino A, Fuschi A, Remondini D, De Cesare A. Monitoring and preventing foodborne outbreaks: are we missing wastewater as a key data source?. Ital J Food Safety [Internet]. 2024 Oct. 10 [cited 2024 Dec. 21];13(4). Available from: https://www.pagepressjournals.org/ijfs/article/view/12725
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