Cases reported as food poisoning

Acute and chronic illnesses and death due to contaminated food continue to be serious public health concerns in developing countries, with a disproportionally high burden borne by children under five (Kirk et al., 2010 [1]). In addition to health concerns, foodborne illnesses also have serious economic consequences in terms of lost wages and productivity (Henson, 2003 [2]). The number cases reported as food poisoning is one of the four food safety indicators described in the Guiding Framework, which also includes Foodborne Disability Adjusted Life Years [3] (DALYs), foodborne disease burden [4], and number of deaths due to foodborne illness [5]. As with the other indicators in this group, the 'cases of food poisoning' indicator assesses the safety of food systems by quantifying the harmful health outcomes associated with consumption of contaminated or unsafe food products. Unlike the other previously mentioned indicators, however, this measure tends to be collected on a smallerscale and quantifies the number of cases, rather than focusing on the outcomes associated with incidence, such as death or disability.