Food-Born Diseases (FBD) are a considered an important hazard for human health and the economy on individual, family and national level. The risk of dissemination of pathogens increases continuously and microbiological quality control programs are employed in the entire food chain in order to minimize the risk of infection and/or intoxication. The use of alternative methods for the detection of microorganisms is one of the tools for granting the microbiological safety of the products. For obtaining reliable results however the method needs to be validated. The purpose of the validation is to ensure through experimental studies that the method is meeting the requirements of analytical applications, ensuring the reliability of results and adequate levels of accuracy, precision, detection limit, solidity, repeatability, reproducibility, specificity, linearity and exactness. Although there are some guides describing the validation of analytical methods, comparatively little has been said regarding validation of microbiological methods and even less with respect to molecular methods. The aim of this work is to review the parameters necessary for validating qualitative alternative methods in the detection of food-born diseases.
Validation; Food-born diseases; FBD
