Persistence of human norovirus GII.4 and GI.4, murine norovirus, and human adenovirus on soft berries as compared with PBS at commonly applied storage conditions

Human noroviruses (hNoV) have been detected on soft fruits. Especially raspberries have been found to be associated with outbreaks of gastroenteritis suggesting persistence of hNoV on these fruits. Therefore, the persistence of hNoV GII.4 and GI.4, murine norovirus (MNV-1, a culturable surrogate for hNoV), and human adenovirus (hAdV, an indicator for human fecal contamination), on raspberries, strawberries and in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) at 4 °C, 10 °C and 21 °C, mimicking commonly applied storage conditions was studied by molecular and cell culture techniques. Monophasic, biphasic and Weibull models were fitted to virus counts with maximum likelihood estimation. The tested viruses were persistent (≤ 0.5 log10-unit reduction in viral titer) under all studied conditions in PBS, at 4 °C and 10 °C on raspberries, and at 4 °C on strawberries. The difference in viral persistence on raspberries and strawberries was most pronounced at 21 °C. Here, infectious MNV-1 and hAdV particles decayed rapidly on strawberries with TFL-values (time for the first log10-unit reduction) of only 1 day (95% CI of 0.6–1 and 0.8–1 days, respectively). On raspberries, however, the TFL-value of infectious MNV-1 was found to likely exceed the shelf life of the berries with 3 days (95% CI of 2.8–3.1 days); hAdV remained infectious with only 0.3 log10-unit reduction (95% CI of 0.2–0.4) in viral titer. For hNoV GI, a TFL-value of 2 days (95% CI 1–4 days) was determined based on the targeted genome fragment, whereas the TFL-value of hNoV GII exceeded the shelf life of strawberries at 21 °C. The greater viral persistence on raspberries as compared to strawberries, especially at 21 °C, may at least in part explain why raspberries are more frequently associated with hNoV outbreaks than strawberries. Moreover, our results show that due to the high persistence of the virus already low contamination levels of the highly infectious hNoV may be associated with an infection risk of humans after consumption of raspberries. The estimated decay parameters and uncertainties of this study serve as important input requirements in the quantitative assessment of public health risks from the consumption of soft fruits.