http://tiny.cc/faowgsworkshop Summary presentation of day one FAO experts workshop on practical applications on Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) for food safety management-7-8 December 2015, Rome, Italy. © FAO: http://www.fao.org

1. Day 1 Summary
EXPERT WORKSHOP ON PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF WGS ON FOOD SAFETY

2. Game changer?
 Real-time application is key
 Advantage to exchange a common language
 Already existing good epi system and real-time surveillance system –
extremely useful, but are they essential?
 Simple food-testing is available everywhere
 Step-by-step approach can be taken with things that exist
 Political will to improve food safety – useful (in other words, countries that
consider food safety a low priority – a challenge)

3. Case studies to highlight benefits
 Why WGS is better than traditional methods?
 Simpler*
 More sensitive/precise/specific (inclusion/exclusion of cases in clusters, “matches”)
 Faster (minimize the negative impact)
 Concrete information/evidence for actions, improved confidence
 Handling of WGS data is easier than PFGE*
 Performing is easier*
 Low cost (if high volume)
 Application flexibility
 Why WGS is beneficial for developing countries?
 Easy to implement*
 Helps build confidence of the competent authority at the national level
 Global identification of the problem can help local identification/intervention

4. Possible pitfalls
 Realistic descriptions of possible pitfall needs to be in the paper
 Essential infrastructure to employ WGS – internet connection/speed
 Are there any prerequisite activities to conduct before employing WGS?
 Acquiring and analyzing exposure data – limiting factor
 Interpretation of the data – bioinformatics capacity development needs
 Challenges in traditional methods remain as challenges in WGS (epi, food investigations, sampling, etc)
 Obvious technological challenges with new methodologies
 Cost (if low volume)
 Trust issue – Is your data credible? What will happen to my data?
 Fears of global data sharing – trade barriers?
 Needs to highlight to educate that earlier intervention is a clear benefit in the long-run, with minimized adverse
health impact, reduced economical impact, fewer lawsuits, less impact overall
 Who will have responsibility for global-level monitoring and action?
 Consideration on different level of development

5. Data-sharing
 Benefit of global data-sharing – for developing countries?
 Raw data sharing – useful, but “what if”
 Confidentiality issue
 Ownership issue – my isolates, my sequenced data
 Data submitters + Data mediator(s) – blinded way
 Not very simple for WHO to be a “global submitter/mediator – still a need for international
hub
 Possibility with academia/universities as data mediator(s)
 Issues with meta data – what would be “minimum” requirement?
 Global vs local
 “Draft” data sharing possibility – for real-time actions

6. WGS implementation challenges
 Resources
 Perception of high cost of the new technology
 Still high cost in developing countries
 Parallel with traditional tests – double/triple the costs?
 New methodologies
 Training and trained personnel needed
 Sensitization needs for higher authorities and politicians – why do we need
WGS?
 Global data-sharing: consequences – uncertain - leads ones to keep data
locally

7. Capacity building
 Basic food safety capacity building still very relevant
 Health surveillance
 Food monitoring
 Foodborne illness investigations
 Food inspection
 Traceability/recall
 Risk analysis
 Trainings vs providing “good practices” + trainings
 Guidance on harmonization

8. Role of international organizations
 “Convening power”
 Providing fora to discuss global issues – governance issues, legal issues,
confidential issues, IPRs
 “Good practice” guidelines for harmonization
 Validation of the data? Facilitation of sharing data
 Coordination of global cluster investigation?
 Collaboration with major relevant initiatives to facilitate synergies
 Networks: PulseNet international, ICOPHAI (GenomeTrakr partnership) – one health
 Databases (NCBi/ENA/DDJ)
 Consortium: GMI, etc

9. Considerations
 Multi-agency collaboration – essential (food and health)
 Multi-sectoral collaboration – extremely useful (public, private, academia,
etc)
 With appropriate governmental policies, WGS can help to limit the impact
of outbreaks through faster and more accurately link outbreaks with food
source and help
 increasing food safety and public health,
 minimizing the impact of contaminated food on trade and
 minimizing food waste