Rotavirus (RV) causes severe gastroenteritis in infants and young children worldwide. Fresh produce has been reported as a source of RV infection during production and harvesting, leading to foodborne illness. Cases of contamination from contact surfaces have also been reported. Therefore, this study applied chemical methods (chlorine dioxide [ClO2], peracetic acid [PAA]), physical methods (gamma irradiation), and a combination of methods (disinfectants+gamma irradiation) to inactivate RV on food contact surfaces (stainless steel) and food (lettuce). Furthermore, the changes in food quality after the combined treatments were assessed. The results of the chemical treatment showed that RV was reduced below the detection limit after treatment for 1min with 20ppm ClO2 or 120ppm PAA in RV suspension. On stainless steel, treatment with 200ppm ClO2 or 2,000ppm PAA reduced contaminated RV by more than 4 log. A 5min treatment with 50ppm ClO2 or 80ppm PAA on lettuce reduced the RV by 1.79 and 0.75 log, respectively. Treatment with 4kGy of gamma irradiation resulted in more than 5 log reduction in suspensions and 3.27 log reduction on food. The sequential treatments, including 30ppm ClO2 followed by 1.5kGy gamma irradiation and 80ppm PAA followed by 1.5kGy gamma irradiation, showed additional inactivation effects (p<0.05) compared to each single treatment. No changes in food quality (color difference and texture) were observed after any treatments, suggesting that the combined treatment of both ClO2 and gamma irradiation and PAA and gamma irradiation can be applied in the fresh food industry to reduce RV contamination.
Read full abstract