Proposed Draft Guidelines for the Application of General Principles of Food Hygiene to Control of Viruses in Food

In recent years, viruses have been increasingly recognized as important causes of foodborne diseases. Data from recent studies have shown that foodborne viral infections are very common in many parts of the world, despite the measures already in place mainly targeted at reducing bacterial contamination. The Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) is presently working on guidelines to give guidance on how to minimize the risk of illness arising from the presence of human enteric viruses in foods, and more specifically from norovirus (NoV) and hepatitis A virus (HAV) in foods. During the ICMSS2011 the proposed guidelines were presented. This paper will summarize the proposed guidelines dated December 2011, with a special focus on the control of NoV and HAV virus in bivalve molluscs.