Monitoring of bivalve mollusk harvesting areas: the relevance of spp.

The microbiological monitoring of bivalve mollusk harvesting areas in the Marche region is based on the parameters of and spp. However, Regulation EU/2019/627 stated criteria based on only to determine the health status of these areas. Therefore, the reason for spp. monitoring, as provided in the Marche region, could be aimed at reducing the risk of placing on the market contaminated bivalve mollusks. This study, using the results of microbiological monitoring carried out in the Marche region from 2015 to 2022 and the methods based on Bayes' theorem and Poisson's distribution, evaluated the effectiveness and efficiency of spp. monitoring in reducing the risk to the consumer. The results show that i) the use of a single sample unit significantly reduced the possibility of detecting non-compliance with the microbiological safety criterion; ii) the time taken to report positive results (average of approximately 10 days) did not allow the timely implementation of control measures; iii) the prevalence of positive outcomes was quite sporadic: a random trend of positivity is recognizable on a geographical and monthly basis for mussels and a geographical basis for striped clams; iv) considering the predictive value of against spp., the specificity is very high and the negative predictive value spp. would be >80%. In conclusion, the study shows that the monitoring of spp. has a limited effect on reducing the risk to the consumer; however, in the cost/benefit assessment, other aspects not covered by this study should be considered.