Preliminary evaluation of BioFire FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel for the detection of noroviruses and other enteric viruses from wastewater and shellfish.

The BioFire FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel was evaluated for the rapid detection of adenovirus, astrovirus, norovirus, rotavirus and sapovirus from influent and effluent wastewater and shellfish. The multiplex BioFire FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel compared well to singleplex qPCR/RT-qPCR methods for the detection of adenovirus, astrovirus, rotavirus and sapovirus from influent and effluent wastewater samples. However, the BioFire FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel showed poor performance for the detection of norovirus, significantly underestimating its presence in wastewater and shellfish samples when compared with the singleplex norovirus GI and GII RT-qPCR assays. Therefore, improvement on detection efficiency for norovirus from environmental and food samples is necessary before using results from the FilmArray® Gastrointestinal Panel to assess associated public health risks.