Under the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measur
es that came into force in 1995, it was stipulated that all World Trade Org
anisation (WTO) members are required to ensure that their sanitary and phyt
osanitary measures are based on assessment of the risks to human, animal or
plant life or health. In doing so, they must take into account risk assess
ment techniques developed by relevant international organisations. WHO and
FAO are two such international organisations that are of very high standard
and influence. Their executive body, the Coder Alimentarius Commission has
developed the concept of Microbiological Risk Assessment (MRA) in a wider
framework called Risk Analysis. The aim of Risk Analysis is to provide a gl
obal standard for the interpretation of the acceptability of risks associat
ed to foods to which consumers might be exposed. Microbiological Risk Asses
sment is an essential element of Risk Analysis because it specifics risks r
elated to pathogenic micro-organisms in the food chain on the basis of soun
d science, combining qualitative and quantitative data in the areas of epid
emiology and pathogenicity of micro-organisms with food production and hand
ling. The concept is still in its infancy but is gaining wide acceptance gl
obally. This paper will describe an inventory of MRA developments in Europe
carried out under auspicion of the European Commission. It also gives the
results of a literature survey concerning scientific publications on the to
pic MRA in which the activities in Europe are compared to those elsewhere.
(C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.