Survey of Canadian retail pork chops and pork livers for detection of hepatitis E virus, norovirus, and rotavirus using real time RT-PCR

Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of the Hepatitis E Virus in Retail Pork Products Marketed in Canada

“…Moreover, HEV contamination of pâtés can occur during production and manufacturing network and might indicate improper food processing during the manufacturing of this product (Nantel-Fortier et al 2016). The overall HEV detection rate in pork liver reported in this study (10.5%) is in agreement with previous observations (9%) (Nantel-Fortier et al 2016; Wilhelm et al 2014). …”

“…The prevalence of HEV in pâtés in this study (47%) is in agreement with the current HEV-3 distribution in pork products in other developed countries (Berto et al 2013; Di Bartolo et al 2012, 2015; Szabo et al 2015; Wilhelm et al 2014), and represents the overall HEV infection in the swine herds used for manufacturing pâtés. Failure to detect HEV RNA in the screened sausages may be due to a number of factors including low amount of liver in the making of the sausages, low virus recovery rates, varying amounts of fat and salt concentrations, and/or to the food processing procedures.…”

“…The recovery rate was calculated after extraction of nucleic acids and quantification by the ddPCR method as the ratio between the number of genome copies of sample process control virus that were recovered to the number of genome copies used to spike the samples with. Overall the recovery rates in the studied samples varied from 0.06 to 14.36%, with the majority of samples (77% of pork pâtés, 86% of sausages, and 100% of raw pork livers) obtained a recovery rate of 1% or higher, which is consistent with the recovery rates obtained by others in similar food matrices (Berto et al 2013; Di Bartolo et al 2012, 2015; Szabo et al 2015, Wilhelm et al 2014). The recovery rates obtained from 3 pork livers that were spiked with HAV were 4.4, 4.6, and 7.9%.…”

“…Importantly, Yoo and colleagues have estimated that the seroprevalence of HEV in commercial pigs is as high as 88.8% in Québec, 80.1% in Ontario, and about 60% Canada-wide (Pei and Yoo 2002). Additionally, the HEV genome has been recently detected in Canadian retail pork chops and pork livers, as well as in the pork production chain (Nantel-Fortier et al 2016; Wilhelm et al 2014). Therefore, there is an urgent need for more research to identify other potential transmission sources that may pose HEV infection risk.…”

Survival of Porcine teschovirus as a surrogate virus on pork chops during storage at 2°C

“…As HEV is shed in fecal material, it is likely that meat products also can then become contaminated during meat processing operations and as a result of cross-contamination. HEV RNA has been detected in retail pork liver and retail pork meat, with a prevalence as high as 11% (14/127; 16/140) and 1% (3/286), respectively (Bouwknegt et al, 2007;Feagins et al, 2007;Wilhelm et al, 2014;Yazaki et al, 2003). Feagins et al (2007) demonstrated that HEV in liver was infectious by inoculating HEV positive liver homogenates into pigs while Berto et al (2013) demonstrated that HEV in figatelli, a pork liver sausage, was infectious by using a novel 3-dimensional cell culture system.…”