Evaluating testing and assurance methods for Trichinella surveillance programs

Authors: BARLOW, ALEC - Non ARS Employee; ROY, KAYLA - Non ARS Employee; HAWKINS, KRIS - Non ARS Employee; ANKARAH, AKO - Non ARS Employee; Rosenthal, Benjamin

Submitted to: Food and Waterborne Parasitology
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/3/2021
Publication Date: 9/1/2021
Citation: Barlow, A., Roy, K., Hawkins, K., Ankarah, A.A., Rosenthal, B.M. 2021. Evaluating testing and assurance methods for Trichinella surveillance programs. Food and Waterborne Parasitology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fawpar.2021.e00129.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fawpar.2021.e00129

Interpretive Summary: Trichinella spiralis is a swine parasite causing Trichinosis in humans. Successful biosecurity measures have vastly reduced its public health burden, but surveillance measures continue to safeguard consumer health, limit producer liability, and promote agricultural trade. Here, we reviewed accepted and alternative methods to support surveillance efforts, considering the gold-standard to newer technologies in terms of their sensitivity, scalability, and cost. We found that existing methods continue to offer decided benefits but that PCR-based technologies deserve future consideration given their ability to detect fewer parasites in less time. Excessive cost constitutes the main barrier to adopting this alternative. Regulatory agencies and industry groups will benefit from this review, which affirms utility of current testing and monitoring procedures and forecasts future improvements to such efforts.

Technical Abstract: While global cases of Trichinellosis have fallen since pork regulation began, the disease still remains a danger to pork consumers and a liability to producers. Managing food safety risk and supporting agricultural trade requires cost-effective and sensitive diagnostic methods. Several means exist to inspect pork for parasitic infection. Here, we review the literature concerning the sensitivity, specificity, and cost of these various methods. We found that artificial digestion coupled with optical microscopy to be the best method for verification of trichinae free pork due to its cost efficiency, high specificity, and reliability. Serological techniques such as ELISA are useful for epidemiological surveillance of the pork supply. While current PCR techniques are quick and useful for diagnosing species-specific infections, they are not cost efficient for largescale testing. However, as PCR techniques (including LF-RPA) improve and continue to reduce cost, such methods may ultimately succeed artificial digestion.