INTRODUCTION Norovirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis and foodborne disease in the United States, causing an estimated one in 15 U.S. residents to become ill each year as well as 56,000-71,000 hospitalizations and 570-800 deaths, predominantly among young children and the elderly. Whereas noroviruses often spread through person-to-person contact, foodborne transmission can cause ...

Food constitutes one of the most important routes of transmission of infectious diseases. Microbial safety and quality of food is a global health concern owing to the emergence and reemergence of foodborne pathogens worldwide recently. Microbial pathogens are disease causing bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoans [1,2]. Food-harboring microbial pathogens and microbial toxins can lead to foodbo...

salmonella     species show different disease syndromes and host specificity, according to their antigenic profile. salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium is one of the most frequently isolated serovar from foodborne outbreaks. poultry meat has been identified as one of the principal foodborne sources of salmonella. in this study, the effect of microwave treatment of chicken meat samples wh...

Address for correspondence: Paul S. Mead, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mail Stop A38, 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA; fax: 404-639-2205; e-mail: [email protected]. More than 200 known diseases are transmitted through food (1). The causes of foodborne illness include viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and prions, and the...

On 5 May 1977 food contaminated with Salmonella thompson (Group Cl) hosfiitalized 545 university students in Trujillo, Peru. Prom@ investigation pinpointed the responsible organism, the most likely source of contamination, and a number of poor food-handling practices that may have contributed to the event. The report of the investigation, presented here, provides a meful illustration of interna...

Foodborne infection is a major health issue and its impact on global social and economic development remains unknown (1). A paper published in the journal Nature estimates 30% of all infections over the last 60 years were Foodborne (2). The Centre for Disease Control in the United States estimates that 76 million people per year are affected by Foodborne illness, with 300,000 requiring hospital...

Foodborne disease surveillance aims to reduce the burden of illness due to contaminated food. There are several different types of surveillance systems, including event-based surveillance, indicator-based surveillance, and integrated food chain surveillance. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, have overlapping data sources, require distinct capacities and resources, and can be consider...

Efforts to prevent foodborne illness target bacterial pathogens, yet noroviruses (NoV) are suspected to be the most common cause of gastroenteritis. New molecular assays allow for better estimation of the role of NoV in foodborne illness. We analyzed 8,271 foodborne outbreaks reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1991 to 2000 and additional data from 6 states. The prop...

Foodborne disease is a major public health problem worldwide. To examine changes in foodborne illness in Australia, we estimated the incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths attributed to contaminated food circa 2010 and recalculated estimates from circa 2000. Approximately 25% of gastroenteritis cases were caused by contaminated food; to account for uncertainty we used simulation techniques to ...

Fernandes et al [1] provide convincing evidence that an outbreak of Campylobacter (species not provided) infection occurred in the population of a small island in England in late September and early October 2011. The investigators conclude that a combination of descriptive epidemiology, genomic epidemiology, and environmental investigation identified the likely source of the outbreak: milk past...