The prevalence of human forms of Sapovirus, an emerging pathogen of human gastroenteritis, was investigated in an 18-month survey from class B mollusc-harvesting areas in two Galician rias (northwest Spain). The detection and quantification of Sapovirus was performed by reverse transcription-real-time PCR, according to the recently developed standard method ISO/TS 15216-1:2013, and genotyping by reverse transcription-nested PCR. The bivalve species studied were wild and cultured mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis), clams (Venerupis philippinarum and Venerupis decussata), and cockles (Cerastoderma edule). Sapovirus was detected in 30 out of 168 samples (17.9%), with cockles being the species with the highest prevalence of positives (28.1%), followed by clams (22.6%), wild mussels (14.3%), and cultured mussels (12.9%). The estuary in the south of the region demonstrated a higher percentage of positive samples (21.8%) than the one in the north (14.4%). Viral contamination levels for the positive samples ranged between 1.9 × 10(3) and 1.4 × 10(5) RNA copies/g of digestive tissue. Thirteen Sapovirus sequences could be obtained based on partial capsid gene sequence and were classified into four genotypes: GI.1 (2 samples), GI.2 (8 samples), GIV.1 (2 samples), and GV.1 (1 sample).
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