ABSTRACT
Until recently, the presence of viruses in water and food was questionable. The reason for that was the fact that viruses are able to multiply solely inside living cells. These could be cell cultures, animals-including people, or fertilized eggs. Water and food, especially subjected to heat treatment, are thus unfavorable environment, making the multiplication of viral molecules impossible. Partial change in
13.1 Morphological and Culture Differences between Viruses and Bacteria .....307 13.2 Food and Water as Potential Sources of Viral Infections .........................308 13.3 Rotavirus Infections ..................................................................................309 13.4 Norovirus Infections ................................................................................. 310 13.5 Sapovirus Infections ................................................................................. 311 13.6 Astrovirus Infections ................................................................................ 311 13.7 Adenovirus Infections ............................................................................... 312 13.8 Hepatitis Infections ................................................................................... 314
13.8.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 314 13.8.2 HAV Infection ............................................................................. 314 13.8.3 HEV Infection ............................................................................. 316
13.9 Enterovirus Infections: Polio, Coxsackie A, B and ECHO ...................... 317 13.10 Diagnostic Tests of Viral Contamination in Different Kind of Food
and Water .................................................................................................. 319 13.11 Prevention of Foodborne Contamination and Viral Infection in
Patients ................................................................................................... 320 References .............................................................................................................. 322
the opinion was caused by the reported high resistance of viruses to external environmental conditions. It was observed that it is a group of micro-organisms that can survive not only during freezing but can also crystallize in unfavorable conditions. Thus, it was noted that even if the viruses do not multiply in outside cell environments, they can exist there. There have been philosophical considerations whether viruses are a form of life. The progress in molecular biology, the development of ribonucleic acids identi›cation methods, followed by proteomics and metabolomics methods, put an end to this dispute, qualifying viruses as a form of life, even though it is known that their structure is different from that of bacterial cells. It is the virology dogma that the basic structures of viral molecules are genome, capsid, and lipid coat called an envelope. The latter is not an integral structure of the viruses, so they can be divided into enveloped and nonenveloped viruses.
