Heat inactivation of aqueous viable norovirus and MS2 bacteriophage
In this study led by CEEES PhD candidate Marlee Shaffer , the heat inactivation kinetics of viable human norovirus and the surrogate MS2 bacteriophage were compared. Notably, norovirus exhibited significantly higher decay rates than MS2 bacteriophage across various temperatures, suggesting that molecular methods do not accurately depict viable human norovirus after heat inactivation and treatment efficiency is underestimated. The study highlights the limitations of molecular methods in accurately assessing norovirus viability, and identifies MS2 bacteriophage as a conservative surrogate that might overestimate the infectious risk of norovirus.