| Congresso Brasileiro de Microbiologia 2023 | Resumo: 556-2 | ||||
Resumo:Fresh vegetables are susceptible to contamination throughout the entire production chain. Since vegetables are often consumed raw, their risk of causing foodborne disease is significantly increased. The aim of this study was to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model to estimate the risk of illness caused by Salmonella due to the consumption of leafy vegetables, focusing on the impact of washing and storage temperature. The QMRA model contains six modules: i) in the field, ii) washing on the farm (after harvesting), iii) retail storage, iv) home storage, v) washing at home (before consumption) and vi) consumption, dose-response, and risk of infection. Seventy-two scenarios considered different initial pathogen levels (0 and 1 log CFU/g), fractions of contaminated vegetables (0.01, 0.1 and 1%), use of sanitizers and storage temperature. A total of 50,000 iterations of a @Risk model in Excel were run for each of the 72 scenarios. Washing with and without sanitizer was modeled to result in a reduction of 2.3±0.3 and 0.8±0.4 log CFU, respectively. Three different triangular distributions were considered for storage temperature in °C [RiskTriang(0,5,10), RiskTriang(5,15,28) and RiskTriang(15,20,28)]. The outputs were risk of infection and estimated number of illnesses. The QMRA model predicted that the number of illnesses increases as the storage temperature of vegetables increases. The model also predicted that the use of sanitizer in washing water had a greater impact on scenarios with a high prevalence of Salmonella, especially when vegetables were stored under refrigerated conditions. When prevalence was assumed to be 1%, concentration was 0 log CFU/g, sanitizer was used in farm and home wash water and refrigerated storage was used, the model predicted one illness for every 1,136 servings. When room temperature storage was assumed, and all other variables remained the same then the model predicted one illness for every 108 servings. If use of sanitizer was omitted, the number of servings needed for one illness dropped to 248 and 103 servings, respectively. These findings highlight the critical role of storage temperature in reducing the microbiological risk from leafy vegetables, and the importance of sanitizers in further reducing the risk of salmonellosis. Palavras-chave: Fresh produce, microbial contamination, risk assessment, Salmonella spp. Agência de fomento:CNPq (#434469/2018-1) and FAPESP (#2013/07914-8). | |||||