METZOON : Development of a quantitative microbial risk assessment for human salmonellosis through household consumption of fresh minced pork méat in Belgium.

A quantitative microbial risk assessment according to the Codex Alimentarius Principles is conducted to evaluate the risk on human salmonellosis through household consumption of fresh minced pork meat in Belgium. The quantitative exposure assessment is carried out by building a modular risk model, called the METZOON-model, which covers the pork production from farm to fork. In the METZOON-model, the food production pathway is split up in six consecutive modules: (1) primary production, (2) transport & lairage, (3) slaughterhouse, (4) post-processing, (5) distribution & storage and (6) preparation & consumption. All the modules are developed to resemble as closely as possible the Belgian situation making use of the available national data. Several statistical refinements and improved modeling techniques are proposed. The model produces highly realistic results. The baseline predicted number of annual salmonellosis cases is 20513 [st. dev. 9061.45]. The risk is estimated higher for the susceptible population [est. 4.713 × 10−5; st. dev. 1.466 × 10−5] compared to the normal population [est. 7.704 × 10−6; st. dev. 5.414 × 10−6] and is mainly due to cross contamination via cook’s hands and only for a small extent to undercooking.METZOO