Dar seafood ppp standard

6. Conclusions

The relative risk rankings described in this report demonstrate that, under current risk management practices – both voluntary and mandatory – in Australia, public health and safety risks are low for the majority of seafoods. A small number of industry sectors present a higher public health risk relative to other seafoods.

The report concludes that the following seafood sectors are ranked in the high relative risk category:

• 
  oysters and other bivalve molluscs (except when the consumed product is only the adductor muscle, for example, roe-off scallops) harvested from growing environments likely to be exposed to faecal contamination and/or not under a shellfish safety management scheme
  
• 
  ready-to-eat cold-smoked finfish (and other ready-to-eat cold-smoked seafood products) when eaten by population sub-groups susceptible to invasive Listeriosis.
  
  
  

Oysters and other bivalves have been the food vehicle in several large and small outbreaks of food-borne illness in Australia over the past 15 years. The food safety hazards involved have included enteric viruses, algal biotoxins and pathogenic bacteria. When harvested from waters managed by a comprehensive shellfish safety scheme, such as the ASQAP, oysters and other bivalves were ranked in the medium relative risk category.
Cold-smoked seafoods have been linked to outbreaks of listeriosis overseas, but there has been no such epidemiological linkage established in Australia. However, there are several factors that might lead to an underestimation of the linkage.
Listeriosis is primarily a sporadic disease affecting susceptible populations (the foetus, pregnant women, neonates, the elderly and the immunocompromised) and, although it can infect healthy people, the low rate of infection in the general population probably means some outbreaks go undetected [58].
The inherent difficulties in determining the food vehicle, due to the long incubation time of the disease, typically militate against identification of the actual food vector.
Of the seafood commodities ranked in the medium relative risk category, prawns and fish (whole or as fillets) have been linked to several outbreaks of food-borne illness in Australia in recent years.

For prawns, the associated food safety hazards have been primarily microbiological hazards, while for fish, ciguatoxin, histamine fish poisoning and escolar wax esters account for the majority of outbreaks.

The conclusions of the risk ranking are subject to uncertainties introduced by significant data gaps and ongoing changes in the risk management environment applying to seafood in Australia. Gaps and uncertainties mean the conclusions must be understood to be based on the current state of knowledge and that they are subject to revision in the light of any new information/data that might become available in the future. So, as the data gaps are filled by the results of ongoing scientific studies and surveys of the prevalence and levels of food safety hazards in seafood in Australia, the rankings may need to be reconsidered and further refined.