Norovirus attribution study: Detection of norovirus from the commercial food preparation environment in outbreak and non-outbreak premises.

Aims: Norovirus remains the most significant virological risk that is transmitted via food and the environment to cause acute gastroenteritis. This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that the contamination of the commercial food production environment with norovirus will be higher in premises that have recently reported a foodborne norovirus outbreak than those that have not.

Methods: Sampling of commercial food production environments was carried out across a 16-month period between January 2015 and April 2016 in the South East and the North West of England by local authority environmental health departments as part of routine surveillance visits to premises.

Comparative performance of the new Aptima HIV-1 Quant Dx assay with three commercial PCR-based HIV-1 RNA quantitation assays.

Background: Quantitative measurement of HIV-1 RNA levels in plasma ('viral load') plays a central role in clinical management. The choice of assay platform can influence results and treatment decisions.

Objective: To compare the analytical performance of the new TMA-based Hologic Aptima(®) HIV-1 Quant Dx assay with that of three PCR-based assays: Abbott RealTime HIV-1, Qiagen Artus(®) HI Virus-1 QS-RGQ, and Roche CAP/CTM HIV-1 Test v2.