The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) is reiterating that it has not identified any new food-safety risk as a result of new research finding that 76 percent of UK-grown oysters contain traces of norovirus.
In response to an e-mail from David Jarrad of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, Linden Jack, who’s in the FSA’s hygiene and microbiology division, said his agency has “clearly” demonstrated to the media that its advice to consumers has not changed — that only the elderly, pregnant women, very young children and people who are ill should avoid eating raw or lightly cooked oysters due to norovirus, a highly infectious virus commonly known as the “winter vomiting bug.”
Many major UK news outlets — including the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Daily Mail — reported on the new study, released by the FSA on Tuesday. There’s a fear that British consumers will misinterpret the news and avoid eating oysters as a result, and the industry is working to allay that fear.
“Just because we know about it [norovirus] does not mean that we should be frightened by it. The more important and meaningful figure, in our view, is that low levels of the virus were found in 52 percent of the positive samples,” Jarrad told The Gaurdian.
The BCC quoted Jarrad as saying, “No one wants to see norovirus in oysters, or illness, and we have to find a way to reduce it, but thankfully there are very few and the main cause of illness is person-to-person contact.”
In his letter to Jarrad, Jack said the FSA’s new study is the first stage in a process to better understand the health risks associated with norovirus and find ways to mitigate it. “It will contribute to a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) review of norovirus levels in oysters,” he said. “Ultimately, we expect this work to lead to development of a European standard (for norovirus levels in oysters) and better monitoring, as well as increased confidence in the safety of oysters.”
Paul Williams, CEO of industry group Seafish, concurred with the FSA: “This report may contribute to the existing development of good management practice guidance in the live bivalve mollusk sector.”
