ISSN: 2577-4379
Authors: El-Dairouty RMK*
A wide variety of viruses may be foodborne transmitted. These viruses belong to numerous different families and the diseases associated with their infection may range from mild diarrhea to severe neural diseases. Viruses are responsible for the greatest number of illnesses from outbreaks caused by food and water, since a significant increase in viral foodborne outbreaks have occurred over the past 20 years. This mini-review will be focused on the viruses most commonly found as food contaminants, noroviruses (NoV); the virus causing the most abundant type of hepatitis, hepatitis A virus (HAV); and on another hepatitis virus that represents an emerging foodborne threat, hepatitis E virus (HEV). Viruses may contaminate a wide variety of food products at pre-harvest or post-harvest stages. It is evident that the adoption of strict hygienic food processing measures from farm to table is required to prevent viruses from contaminating our foods. Although, and recently many plants have demonstrated potent antiviral activity against many kind of viruses and these findings suggest that these plants may have potential as therapeutic and/or food- additives agents to yield newer drugs or functional foods.
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