The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has backed European plans to use whole genome sequencing (WGS) to help solve outbreaks.
The European Commission recently asked for comments on potential legislation requiring EU countries to do WGS during foodborne outbreaks. The FDA said the proposed regulation would “significantly improve food safety and public health within the European Union.” The genomic sequence of isolates collected from clinical, food, or environmental samples in the United States is publicly available, with limited metadata, through the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
International angle The FDA suggested data submitted to ECDC and EFSA’s One Health database could also be uploaded to the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). “The inclusion of sequence data plus limited metadata, such as date of collection, isolate source, and geographic area, collected from samples in the European Union in the INSDC could make a greater impact when combined with data from the rest of the world on food safety both within the EU and globally, allowing public health professionals and food safety authorities to more rapidly detect and address foodborne illness affecting multiple countries or regions. “The food supply chain is becoming increasingly global, and the U.
S. and the EU share many common importers of food; thus, having integrated data systems and working together greatly benefits consumers in the United States.