Abstract
Pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) and Aichi virus were detected from cultivated oysters and their potential as indicator for Norovirus contamination of oysters were examined. Both of the detection frequency and amount of RNA of PMMoV in oysters were higher than those of Norovirus, showing a potential of PMMoV as the Norovirus indicator. Then, we proposed a practicable usage of PMMoV to estimate the probability of Norovirus-positive oysters. When PMMoV are detected at a high concentration than 106 copies/g-DT, indicating over 77% of oysters contaminated with Norovirus, we can skip the detection of Norovirus to reduce the time and cost for test.
