Occurrence of norovirus and hepatitis A virus in wild mussels collected from the Baltic Sea.

The aim of the study was to define the occurrence of human noroviruses of genogroup I and II (NoV GI and NoV GII) and hepatitis A virus (HAV) in the Baltic Sea mussels. The shellfish samples were taken at the sampling sites located on the Polish coast. In total, 120 shellfish were tested as pooled samples using RT-PCR and hybridisation with virus specific probes. NoV GI was detected in 22 (18.3%), NoV GII in 28 (23.3%), and HAV in 9 (7.5%) of the shellfish. The nucleotide sequence analysis of the detected NoV GII strains showed a 97.3-99.3% similarity to GII.4 virus strain. This is the first report describing the NoV and HAV occurrence in wild Baltic mussels and their possible role as bioindicators of seawater contamination with human enteric viruses.