Paquet Hygiène et surveillance REMI - Surveillance microbiologique des zones de production conchylicoles

REMI has been managed by Ifremer for 20 years, in order to monitor and assess the microbiological quality of the shellfish growing areas. Recent EU regulation allows for evolution of the monitoring, with the development of sanitary surveys prior to classification of the area. The sampling strategy is based on the knowledge of the sources of faecal contamination, their characteristics and their behaviour (seasonal variations, circulation of pollutants...). The threshold fixed by Regulation EC n°854/2004 has changed, no tolerance for A and C class is permitted under the current regulation. The quality of 238 areas (on 299) classified in 2009 was determined (exceptional unfavorable results were not taken into account and should be removed) : 4 areas were of A quality, while most of the areas had B quality (201 areas), 23 areas C quality level, and 10 D quality level. For areas classified in 2009, all the historic quality assessments were determined by three years sliding data sets since 1989. The evolution since 1989 shows firstly that the contamination levels are different between the burrowing and non burrowing bivalves and secondly that the evolution is approximately the same with an improvement of the quality from 1989 to 2002. Since then, a decrease is observed. Mots clé : Paquet hygiène, zone de production de coquillages, surveillance microbiologique, E. coli, REMI, qualité microbiologique.