ABSTRACT
Human enteric viruses are recognized as significant causes of foodborne illness, recently ranked as fifth and sixth among identified causes of foodborne disease in the United States. Contamination of shellfish-growing waters with human sewage provides the necessary source of human enteric viruses that are accumulated and concentrated by the shellfish during the feeding process. The persistence of human enteric viruses in handled foods makes prevention of disease transmission after postprocessing contamination even more difficult. Unfortunately, development of effective methods to detect human enteric viruses in foods has lagged behind the clinical capabilities. Fecally contaminated water and/or soil in food production and processing may provide a source of viral contamination for foods. Primary and secondary human embryonic kidney and monkey kidney cell cultures are the preferred host systems for an array of culturable human enteric viruses. While semiquantitative polymerase chain reaction approaches for the detection of human enteric viruses have been reported, these methods need to be further refined.
