Water sprayed by farmers on fields could be the source of norovirus contamination, responsible for a large number of gastroenteritis in the world. In France, this highly contagious virus caused 316 episodes of gastroenteritis between September 2007 and March 2009.
A team from the Netherlands Institute for Public Health and the Environment discovered that during spraying pesticides, the water used to dilute the product may be contaminated. The virus then uses food as vectors, before landing directly on our plates. The only solution, pending further research, is to cook the food despite the loss of nutritional richness that this causes.
In the Dutch study, published by theInternational Journal of Food Microbiology, the researchers say they tested eight different pesticides. Norovirus resisted seven of them. The products chosen by the team are among those most often used to protect salad and berry crops.
