Risk assessment of Hepatitis E virus in shellfish consumption among Chinese residents based on R language simulation

Abstract Shellfish is one of the important aquatic products in coastal areas, due to its feeding mechanism, it will be absorbed into the body with the virus in the process alone for accumulation, and most of the current research on hepatitis E virus in shellfish is limited to the sampling of the surface layer to detect its prevalence, traditional quantitative risk assessment(QMRA) methods are difficult to assess the potential risks associated with consumption. This study, based on R language, we simulated the possible infection risk of Chinese urban/rural residents in cooking and non-cooking situations by combining historical literature detection data from 2011 to 2024 and personal experimental data. Although the probability of infection in a single exposure is slightly lower than that of rural residents, the annual risk of infection exceeds that of rural residents, and the confidence interval of 95% of the annual infection risk of urban residents is 4.14e-6 to 3.56e-4, the annual infection risk is 1.15e-9 to 1.29e-6 in the cooking situation, and the annual infection risk of rural residents is 95% in the non-cooking condition. The confidence interval was 2.9e-6 to 2.5e-4, and the annual risk of infection in the cooking case was 8.04e-10 to 9.04e-7, and the risk uncertainties were discussed. By assessing the prevalence of hepatitis E virus in shellfish and the risk probability of disease infection after consumption, the safety awareness of Chinese people to eat shellfish can be strengthened, and reasonable suggestions can be put forward for the local breeding environment through the prevalence of hepatitis E virus in various countries, so as to improve the breeding environment and achieve the purpose of reducing the relevant prevalence and risks.