Assessment of a Sampling Plan Based on Visual Inspection for the Detection of Anisakid Larvae in Fresh Anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus). A First Step Towards Official Validation?

The presence of anisakid larvae in fish is a public health issue, and effective risk management procedures are needed to avoid that heavily infected products reach the market. Currently, an official sampling plan for fresh fish defining sample size, inspection methods, and criteria to accept or reject the merchandise is lacking at the European and Italian level. In this study, we compared the visual inspection proposed by the sampling plan of the Lombardy Region (Italy) to the UV press method and to an optimized digestion procedure with the aim to assess its ability in detecting visible parasites. Thirty-one batches of Engraulis encrasicolus, each composed of similar to 30 specimens, were collected and subsequently analyzed with the three techniques. The mean abundance (MA) was calculated after each procedure and compared on the basis of a threshold value. The results showed that the visual inspection performed similarly to the digestion method, with a sensitivity of 93 %, a specificity of 100 %, and an accuracy of 97 %. Overall, the comparison showed that, in the proposed sampling plan, the visual inspection is effective in rejecting unmarketable anchovies and in preventing the commercialization of unsafe products. This method is simple, less demanding than digestion in terms of time and equipment, and thus suitable as a standardized procedure to be routinely applied by food business operators. The hazard characterization, performed by sequencing the mtDNA cox2 gene, has identified the visible larvae as Anisakis pegreffii in 98 % of the cases, highlighting the zoonotic potential of the parasites found and the need for preventive measures.