Food Protection Trends - November/December 2023 - 572

good symposium topics for IAFP 2024. Ideas have
been listed based on group sharing.
Topic 1 - The impact of large outbreaks on food
safety and public health...what will the next 5- 10 years
bring to close gaps on large outbreak occurrence?
What research will be needed?
What of pressure are we under? For example,
Cyclospora outbreak in 2013 brought a lot of new
developments.
Topic 2 - The " berry situation " ...Hepatitis A virus and
frozen berries from same farm over multiple years. HAV
in berries has triggered a lot of investigations, but
what did we have in the end? A lot of obvious gaps,
so what should be done to prevent these outbreaks in
the future? Once we have an outbreak like this, what
are the chances it will happen again? This would be a
good opportunity to discuss the preventive guidance
that FDA is releasing and to look at ways to have real
time, on farm risk evaluation. Possible Roundtable
Topic 3 - Mitigation and intervention strategies for
both viruses and parasites in frozen berries. Maybe
use the work Fresh Express has done on Cyclospora
interventions with the growers?
Some promising interventions include HPP and
advanced oxidation processes.
Topic 4 - Concerns about molecular testing and
high Ct values, e.g., what is the value of a Ct value
of 40 and is it valid? Should be a confirmatory test for
a molecular " yes. " However, if detect virus/protozoa
genomic material, then fecal contamination is more
likely to be present so how do we address the risk of
these high Ct values to our most vulnerable populations?
This brings back the need for fecal indicators
for viruses...fecal indicators specific to humans.
Topic 5 - Wastewater surveillance from a nonpandemic
standpoint. How can we utilize this type of
surveillance for enhancing safety of the food supply?
Topic 6 - Veterinarians have a lot of knowledge
about parasites and we should engage with them to
come up with a more holistic approach.
Topic 7 - Recovery of viruses from samples to
maintain viability in order to utilize new infectivity
models. Previous methods have been destructive in
nature or have not worried about maintaining virus
integrity.
Topic 8 - Next-generation sequencing for
epidemiological tracing.
Recommendations to the Executive Board:
1. Sonia Almeria was elected Vice-Chair of
the Viral and Parasitic Foodborne Disease PDG
on April 19, 2023. We recommend that this is
approved by the Executive Board.
Next Meeting Date: July 14, 2024, Long Beach,
California.
572 Food Protection Trends November/December
Meeting Adjourned: 10:55 a.m. Eastern Time.
Chairperson: Kristen Gibson.
Water Safety PDG
Attendees: Adriana Alfaro, Basim Alohali, Aadeya
Arora, Samir Assar, Rebecca Bell, Manreet Bhullar,
Betsy Bihn, Preetha Biswas, Kari Bunting, Kellie
Burris, Catalina Cespedes, Erdogan Ceylan, Michael
Ciaramella, Rachel Conrad, Kim Cook, Mauricio
Durigan, Craig Edwards, Kristin Esch, Jorge Pinto
Ferreira, Zhujun (Abby) Gao, Leon Gorris, Joshua
Gurtler, Alan Gutierrez, Olivia Haley, Wannes Hugo
R. Van Hassel, Shauna Henley, Harsimran Kaur
Kapoor, Ryan Karns, Julie Kase, Margaret Kirchner,
Greg Komar, Elisabetta Lambertini, Jeffrey LeJeune,
Teressa Lopez, John McBride, Yulie Meneses, Amie
Minor, Ahmed El-Moghazy, Markanna Moore, Claire
Murphy, Chantal Nde, Salina Parveen, Ana Allende
Prieto, Rawane Raad, Nadira Espinoza Rock, Rachel
Rodriguez, Robert Salter, Ron Sarver, Manan Sharma,
Amy Siceloff, Mariana Villarreal Silva, Jared Smith,
Don Stoeckel, Sheetal Thomas, Phillip Tocco, Camilo
Toro, Becky Unwer, Sasikala Vaddu, Francisco
Garces-Vega, Tamara Walsky, Daniel Weller, Sharon
White, Anett Winkler, May Yeow, Ian Young.
Number of Attendees: 64.
Meeting Called to Order: Sunday, 3:16 p.m.
Eastern Time, July 16, 2023.
Minutes Recording Secretary: Claire Murphy
Old Business: Introductions - all attendees. Board
updates. Discussion and adoption of 2022 Water
Safety PDG meeting. Motioned to accept minutes: Don
Stoeckel.Second: Leon Gorris.
New Business: Student PDG update; Overview of
accepted and non-accepted symposia and roundtables
happening at 2023 annual meeting; Updates from
selected speakers: Jeff LeJeune, Elizabeth Bihn,
Samir Assar.
Review of Conferences and Events Related to Water
Safety that are not IAFP; Board responses from 2022
Board recommendations; Receive recommendations
for the 2023 board; Ideas for Webinars and PDG
activities; Important IAFP dates for 2024 IAFP
Annual Meeting; Brainstorming 2024 Symposia and
Roundtables.
Recommendations to the Executive Board:
1. Can we have a way for the recordings and
presentations from the annual meeting to go into
a single folder after the conference?
2. Offer options to rejected symposium/
roundtable at earlier decision making timepoints so
that rejected symposium/roundtable can be turned
into webinars throughout the year to avoid the
majority of webinars being submitted in spring.
Food Protection Trends - November/December 2023

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