Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet).

The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) is the foodborne disease component of the Emerging Infections Program (EIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A collaborative project of CDC, the seven EIP sites, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), FoodNet consists of active surveillance for foodborne diseases and related epidemiologic studies designed to help public health officials better understand the epidemiology of foodborne diseases in the United States. FoodNet was established in 1995 in five locations: Minnesota, Oregon, and selected counties in Georgia, California, and Connecticut. The total population of these sites, or catchment areas, is 14.7 million, or 6% of the population of the United States. FoodNet was expanded to selected counties in Maryland and New York in 1997. The goals of FoodNet are to describe the epidemiology of new and reemerging bacterial, parasitic, and viral foodborne pathogens; estimate the frequency and severity of foodborne diseases that occur in the United States per year; and determine how much foodborne illness results from eating specific foods, such as meat, poultry, and eggs. Foodborne diseases are common; an estimated 6 to 33 million cases occur each year in the United States. Although most of these infections cause mild illness, severe infections and serious complications do occur. The public health challenges of foodborne diseases are changing rapidly; in recent years, new and reemerging foodborne pathogens have been described, and changes in food production have led to new food safety concerns. Foodborne diseases have been associated with many different foods, including some previously thought to be safe, such as eggs and fruit juice, both of which have transmitted Salmonella during recent outbreaks. Public health officials in the seven EIP sites are monitoring foodborne diseases, conducting epide-miologic and laboratory studies of these diseases, and responding to new challenges from these diseases. Information gained through this network will lead to new interventions and prevention strategies for addressing the public health problem of foodborne diseases. Current " passive " surveillance systems rely upon reporting of foodborne diseases by clinical microbiology laboratories to state health departments , which in turn report to CDC. Although foodborne diseases are extremely common, only a fraction of them are routinely reported to CDC through these surveillance systems. Inadequate reporting results from a complex chain of events that must occur before a case is reported, and a break at any linkage …