prevalence and molecular characteristics of vibrio species in pre ...

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safety to assure safety of the public health. Importing countries imposed different
quality and safety policies on imported food and it leads to border control, rejection,
or detainment of the product. This leads to direct and indirect financial losses to the
exporters. Seafood becomes the most common product that causes notification on
import alerts. The presence of pathogenic micro-organisms is one of the common
causes for detention (Wan Norhana et al., 2010).
The EU committee on Rapid Alarm System for Food and Feed (RASFF)
showed the highest notification of Vibrio on fish, crustaceans and mollusks during
2001 to 2003 and accounted for 29.3% out of total food groups. Out of seafood types
75% of the cases were due to frozen shrimp. During 1999-2002 border cases reported
in the EU regarding microbial risk, Vibrio spp. showed highest occurrence (39.8%)
followed by the Salmonella (27.7%). The EU countries do not have harmonized
criteria for Vibrio organisms (FAO, 2005). Meanwhile import detention by the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) in United States for seafood products accounted for
almost 27% of the total detentions in 2001 (Wan Norhana et al., 2010). Investigations
carried out on seafood imported from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam
to Taiwan revealed 45.9% of samples positive for V. parahaemolyticus. The incidence
rate in shrimp was high (75.8%) when compared with other seafood such as crabs,
snails and lobsters (Wong et al., 1999).
Several countries and food authorities set microbiological criteria on raw
seafood and ready-to-eat seafood including shrimp to safeguard their consumers
(Table 5). A regulatory requirement for the absence of V. cholerae has been
established in Hong Kong, the United States, International Commission of
Microbiological Specification for Food (ICMSF), the European Union, the United
Kingdom and Australia. Only the FDA stated that the absence of any serotype of V.
cholerae O1 or non O1 as a criteria to remove the food from the food chain. Presence
of V. parahaemolyticus in the food is accepted in all countries but they set different
accepted levels. The accepted level of V. parahaemolyticus in raw shrimp at time of
sale should be less than 100 cfu/g in Netherland, and raw, frozen and cooked require
similar values (