demonstrates the potential of bloody clams as a vehicle in V. parahaemolyticus
transmission in Malaysia. Without the missing pieces,
the attempted stochastic model would have been hampered, and
despite of the limitations, the sensitivity analysis gives a general
guideline to determine the parameters driving the risk. For instance,
the tornado charts shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 are the results
of the sensitivity analysis for wet markets and hypermarkets,
respectively. The sensitivity analysis indicated that the initial
pathogenic cell counts were one of the major contributors, which
may increase the risk by 13.6-folds and 10.9-folds, for wet markets
and hypermarkets, respectively. Therefore, to reduce the risk
post-harvest treatments, for example, the relaying and depuration
process, mild heat treatment, high-pressure processing and irradiation,
may be attempted. These treatments have been shown to be
successful to reduce the microbial loads in oysters (37), and to our
knowledge, bloody clam farms in Malaysia do not implement such
practices, hence should be encouraged by the government.
From the exposure assessment, the ambiguities in temperatures
were less substantial on the risk, which could be explained based
on Eq. (1), where the growth rate responds quadratically to a linear
change in temperature. Given the average standard deviation of
the growth rate in this model was only 0.036 log/h, the marginal