Quantitative Risk Assessment of Human Trichinellosis Caused by Consumption of Pork Meat Sausages in Argentina

SEQUEIRA, GABRIEL; ZBRUN, MARÍA; SOTO, LORENA; ASTESANA, DIEGO; BLAJMAN, JÉSICA; ROSMINI, MARCELO; FRIZZO, LAUREANO; SIGNORINI, MARCELO

ZOONOSES AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Blackwell Verlag GmbH

Año: 2016 vol. 63 p. 167 - 176

In Argentina,there are three known species of genus Trichinella; however, Trichinella spiralisis most commonly associated with domestic pigs and it is recognized as the maincause of human trichinellosis by the consumption of products made with raw or insufficientlycooked pork meat. In some areas of Argentina, this disease is endemic and it isthus necessary to develop a more effective programme of prevention and control.Here, we developed a quantitative risk assessment of human trichinellosisfollowing pork meat sausage consumption, which may be used to identify thestages with greater impact on the probability of acquiring the disease. Thequantitative model was designed to describe the conditions in which the meat isproduced, processed, transported, stored, sold and consumed in Argentina. Themodel predicted a risk of human trichinellosis of 4.88 x 10-6 and anestimated annual number of trichinellosis cases of 109. The risk of human trichinellosiswas sensitive to the number of Trichinella larvae that effectively survived thestorage period (r = 0.89), the average probability of infection (PPinf)(r = 0.44) and the storage time (Storage) (r = 0.08). This model allowedassessing the impact of different factors influencing the risk of acquiringtrichinellosis. The model may thus help to select possible strategies to reducethe risk in the chain of by-products of pork production.