Development of a qualitative risk assessment for meat from wild boar from a One-Health perspective

The focus on this EU-FORA fellowship was to develop a qualitative risk assessment with flowchart as way of communicating the risk assessment transparently at each stage including the indication of data uncertainty and variability. Even though qualitative risk assessments are widely used, they do not always include uncertainty and variability and are not always presented in scenarios, as way of transparent communication. As case studies a microbial pathogen and a contaminant were chosen because they exemplify different types of risk. During this fellowship, a qualitative risk assessment flowchart was developed for Trichinella spp. and per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) for consumers of Latvia and Germany, from consuming wild boar meat. For each potential hazard, a literature search was done. For the flowchart, prevalence and concentration for each hazard were estimated, based on available literature. Furthermore, the flowchart was supplemented with additional nodes, that might increase or decrease the risk for the consumer. In the end, two different qualitative risk assessment flowcharts were developed, out of which, the Trichinella spp. risk assessment has been presented in two conferences.