MANILA, Philippines?Food contamination is fast becoming a serious public health risk around the world.
Traditionally referred to as the accidental contamination of food, spoilage, unsafe handling of food or mislabeling, the term now even refers to those resulting from terroristic attack, that is the deliberate act to contaminate food or disrupt the manufacture or distribution of food.
According to the World Health Organization, food and waterborne diarrheal diseases are leading causes of illness and death in less developed countries, killing about 1.8 million people annually, most of whom are children.
Several factors have contributed to the rise in outbreaks including greater consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as failure to address filth, decomposition, exposure to pesticides or industrial chemicals and the illegal use of color or food additives during the manufacture or preparation of the food product.
Commonly recognized
Among the commonly recognized food borne infections, according to WHO, are those caused by the bacteria campylobacter (mostly from eating contaminated undercooked chicken, or other food that has been contaminated with juices dripping from raw chicken); listeria monocytogenes (usually acquired from eating contaminated soft cheeses and cold cuts at the deli counter as well as unpasteurized milk or foods made from unpasteurized milk); salmonella (typically originates from animal feces that got into food products); and E. coli O157:H7 (usually contaminates raw meat, fruits and vegetables or drinking water).
Other sources of food contamination that has recently sparked major international alarm are mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and avian influenza.
Indeed, the economic fallout of food contamination, whether accidental or deliberate is huge as food companies, for example, face the cost of responding to the incident and recalling the product while suppliers, distributors and food establishments are likely to also suffer losses.
Loss of confidence
Loss of consumer confidence is another outcome that could bring down a company?s domestic and international sales both to a company?s domestic.
Worse, the whole country could be banned from exporting a particular product.
To reduce the incidence of food borne diseases, companies involved in animal husbandry, animal agriculture and food processing have looked for ways to ensure the quality of their products, oftentimes partnering with authorities and other companies specializing in such testing procedures.
One of these companies is DuPont Qualicon, which developed three systems for accurate sampling and testing of dangerous organisms in food items.
DuPont Qualicon is a business outfit within chemical giant DuPont (agriculture and nutrition portfolio) that provides innovative, science-based diagnostic products that can reduce the impact of pathogens and other unwelcomed organisms in food and pharmaceuticals.
Not only accurate
DuPont Qualicon claims these three systems not only produce accurate results but also deliver fast results and reduce the need for highly skilled technicians and expensive personnel training. They are also cost-effective.
The first of these systems is the BAX System Q7 that offers advanced DNA-based detection for a broad range of sampling applications?from ingredients to end-products.
According to DuPont Qualicon, its customers around the world have made the system an integral part of their quality control systems due to its tremendous impact on their operations?from dramatically decreasing false positives and minimizing retesting, to reducing employee training and speeding the time to market.
The BAX System has also been adopted by the US Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service for meat and poultry testing, as well as validated by many international government labs and certified by independent authorities such as AOAC International (an organization devoted to the validation and use of chemical and microbiological analytical methods) and the French Association of Normalization (an organization that lead and coordinate the standards development process and promote the application of those standards).
Speed, accuracy, resolution
The second, called the RiboPrinter microbial characterization system, provides the speed, accuracy and resolution needed to identify microorganisms and characterize them efficiently and consistently.
These determinations can be applied to virtually all bacteria.
Using powerful genetic information, the RiboPrinter system provides an automated genetic snapshot?called RiboPrint pattern?of any bacterium in less than eight hours.
RiboPrint patterns characterize environmental isolates, pathogens, spoilage organisms, control strains, beneficial organisms or any bacterium that is important to the pharmaceutical, personal care and food safety industries.
Completing the systems is the Lateral Flow System using the StatMedia soluble packets.
Simple, inexpensive
According to DuPont Qualicon, the Lateral Flow System is a simple and inexpensive alternative to traditional culture methods for routinely screening foods for pathogens.
Tests and media are available for salmonella, listeria and E. coli O157 (including 0157:H7) and the company informed that its test strips have a long shelf and can be stored at room temperature, thus saving valuable refrigerated storage space in laboratory.
The StatMedia soluble packet, on the other hand, is a convenient packaging system for microbial enrichment media that provides the same performance as bulk powder but with several advantages.
It simplifies and shortens the media preparation process, eliminates dust exposure and ergonomic issues associated with handling bulk media powder, reduces media preparation costs, minimizes the need for autoclaving (most sizes gamma-irradiated) and minimizes waste from expired batches of rehydrated media.
