Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In 1999, Armstrong (
1999
) developed an integrated hygiene program into food
safety management called hygieomics. The program not only dealt with the imple-
mentation of hand hygiene into food production and processing practices, but also
described means to cope with the problems associated with behaviour, which is a
common concern in both the healthcare and food services sectors (Ferguson
2009
;
Gilling et al.
2001
; Huis et al.
2012
; Vindigni et al.
2011
; Whitby et al.
2007
). The
process involved rules and compliance enforcement similar to HACCP, but also
demanded an individual commitment to action and the development of a commu-
nity that is engaged in safeguarding the food supply to achieve both personal and
organizational confi dence. Such efforts have been used in the health care fi eld with
signifi cant success (Huis et al.
2012
).
Another means to increase hand hygiene compliance in food workers and han-
dlers is the use of appropriate and consistent training regimens. Hand hygiene train-
ing has been used extensively in the health care sector and results have been
promising (Pincock et al.
2012
). In food safety, training has been used but the results
have been meager to disappointing (Averett et al.
2011
; Chapman et al.
2010
;
Lillquist et al.
2005
; York et al.
2009
). Reasons for these poor results have been
investigated (Green et al.
2005
,
2006
,
2007
; Pragle et al.
2007
) and a combination of
factors including high workload, inappropriate staffi ng, lack of managerial support,
and personal beliefs have been identifi ed. The clear conclusion, therefore, is that a
lack of adherence to hand hygiene is based on behavior, not lack of information.
The issues faced in the food industry are no different from those in the health
care fi eld where compliance rates for hand hygiene have never reached 100 %.
While there has been no meaningful way to reach that goal, there has been a change
in the direction of health care toward a 'patient-centric' viewpoint (Landers et al.
2012
), whereby hand hygiene is a means to keep patient satisfaction high. This may
be a very reasonable way to improve hand hygiene rates in the food industry as
focusing on the satisfaction of those who are purchasing foods at retail will help
maintain a high reputation and continued returns.
Washing and scrubbing
: Vega et al. (
2008
) have demonstrated that viruses have the
ability to attach to produce through electrostatic forces. Based on their analysis,
the use of nonionic detergents as well as high levels of salt was suffi cient to remove
viruses from the surfaces of lettuce. This suggests that a salt solution of 1 N NaCl
and agitation may be suffi cient to remove the majority of viruses from fresh pro-
duce. Similarly, Wang et al. (
2013
) have shown that the simple action of scrubbing
and peeling is suffi cient to reduce up to 99 % of virus from the surfaces of produce.
However, the likelihood of cross-contamination without proper hot water treatment
in between items increases signifi cantly. This potential for fomite transmission has
been demonstrated for other food preparation activities such as cutting and grating
(Wang et al.
2013
).
Temperature
: The use of temperature and pasteurization is an effective means to kill
bacteria, however, viruses are signifi cantly more resistant to such temperatures.
Bozkurt et al. (
2013
) have shown that MNV is very temperature resistant, requiring
