A semi-quantitative seafood safety risk assessment

As part of a semi-quantitative risk assessment of 10 seafood hazard/product combinations, a risk assessment tool was used to generate a Risk Ranking, The tool is in a spreadsheet software format and provides a risk estimate, which is scaled between 0 and 100, where 0 represents no risk and 100 represents all meals containing a lethal dose of the hazard. A full description of the tool is contained in Ross and Sumner (this issue). Based on their ranking, seafoods in Australia fell into three risk categories. Hazard/product pairs with ranking < 32 included mercury poisoning (Relative Risk = 24), Clostridium botulinum in canned fish (RR=25), or in vacuum-packed cold-smoked fish (RR=28), parasites in sushi/sashimi (RR=31), viruses in shellfish from uncontaminated waters (RR=31), enteric bacteria in imported cooked shrimp (RR=31) and algal biotoxins from controlled waters (RR=3 1). It is noted that there have been no documented cases of food-borne illness from any of the above hazard/product pairings in Australia. Those with rankings 32-48 included Vibrio parahaemolyticus in cooked prawns (RR=37), V cholerae in cooked prawns (RR=37), Listeria monocytogenes in cold-smoked seafoods (RR=39), scombrotoxicosis (RR=40), V vulnificus in oysters (RR=41), ciguatera in the general Australian population (RR=45), L. monocytogenes in susceptible (RR=45) and extremely susceptible populations (RR=47) and enteric bacteria in imported cooked shrimp eaten by vulnerable consumers (RR = 48). Almost all the hazard/product pairs in this category have caused the outbreaks of food poisoning in Australasia. Those hazard/product pairs with rankings >48 included ciguatera from recreational fishing in susceptible areas (RR=60), viruses in shellfish from contaminated waters (RR=67) and algal biotoxins from uncontrolled waters in an algal event (RR=72). There have been significant (>100 cases) food poisoning incidents involving viruses and biotoxins in shellfish, while ciguatera poisoning is prevalent among coastal communities in Australia's warmer waters. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.