While it is imperative to fully understand the pathogenic impact of each species of micro-organism, it is also equally important to understand the level of infective dose of each species that could cause harm to adverse health impact. A moderate pathogenic hazard that has limited spread such as "bacillus cereus" is just as potent as a severely hazardous species.
FSMS is not just about severity, likelihood or risk - its about risk management as well which means "zero tolerance". Comments appreciated.
Dear Charles Chew,
Sorry, for a very late reply as I didn’t notice your post.
Thank you for a feedback.
I agree with you the infective dose of each species should be known while doing the risk assessment. In fact
FSMS should be zero tolerance. Moreover the infective dose may vary, depending on various factors like the host, immunity, geographical location, occupation etc.... For example, the infective dose for Salmonella is around 15-20 cells in high risk population, whereas it may be a million (approx.) to cause illness in a healthy person. Just a thought regarding the estimation of the infective dose which are arrived upon from any epidemiological studies or by tests done on any healthy volunteers, the values may not be appropriate for estimating the risks. Therefore any potential hazard should have suitable control measures devised to manage the risk of a health hazard.