Diarrhoeal disease in children due to contaminated food

Perspectives In December 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) released estimates of the burden of human disease attributable to consumption of food contaminated with 31 infectious agents or chemicals. 1 The report concluded that exposure to contaminated food worldwide in 2010 resulted in 600 million episodes of illness (95% uncertainty interval, UI: 420–960 million), 420 000 deaths (95% UI: 310 000–600 000) and 33 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) (95% UI: 25–46 million). 1 The numbers were based on 4.6 billion cases of diarrhoea (95% UI: 3.5–6.5 billion) and 1.6 million deaths due to diarrhoea (95% UI: 1.3–1.9 million) that occurred worldwide in 2010, similar to numbers occurring in later years. 2 A key element of the estimation was attributing a proportion of the diarrhoea deaths to foodborne transmission of infections. A structured expert judgement was used to apportion transmission modes for individual pathogens, by estimating that 29% (95% UI: 22–36%) of 11 key bacterial, viral and protozoal causes of diarrhoea were foodborne.