Detection of pathogens in the food chain is limited mainly to bacteria, and the globalization of the food industry enables international viral foodborne outbreaks to occur. Outbreaks from 2002 through 2006 recorded in a European norovirus surveillance database were investigated for virologic and epidemiologic indicators of food relatedness. The resulting validated multivariate logistic regressi...

Surveillance was enhanced and a retrospective interview study performed in 1998-99 to determine incidence, causes, and costs of foodborne illnesses in Uppsala, Sweden. Sixty-eight percent of the detected foodborne illness incidents were single cases, and 32% were outbreaks. Most (85%) of the incidents came to the attention of the municipal authorities through telephone calls from affected perso...

Aging is associated with loss of the physical barriers and immune efficiency that typically control pathogens' access to and multiplication within the body, thus making infection more likely in elderly persons. Chronic diseases and other health factors, such as malnutrition and immobility, may increase susceptibility to and severity of infections, including foodborne illnesses, in elderly perso...

Foodborne pathogens are among the most significant problems in maintaining the health of the population. In 2011 the CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases. The leading causes of foodborne illnesses in the United States are Salmonella and Shigella [1,2]. Staphylococcus aureus is among ...

The broad spectrum of foodborne infections has changed dramatically over time, as well-established pathogens have been controlled or eliminated, and new ones have emerged. The burden of foodborne disease remains substantial: one in four Americans is estimated to have a significant foodborne illness each year. The majority of these illnesses are not accounted for by known pathogens, so more must...

Foodborne infections are an important Public Health concern worldwide. Most of the pathogens that play a role in foodborne diseases have a zoonotic origin. The epidemiology of foodborne infections as well as the food production and distribution chains, have remarkably changed during the past ten years. Understanding of how pathogens arrive, persist in animal reservoir or enter the food chain is...

Many bacterial species are responsible for sporadic cases and outbreaks of foodborne intoxication and infection. The foodborne diseases are classified on the basis of the pathogenetic mechanisms involved into four categories: performed toxin, enterotoxin formed in the colonized small intestine, mucosal invasion (enterocolitis) and mucosal invasion with bacteremia. Invasive and toxigenic strains...

Foodborne pathogens cause >9 million illnesses annually. Food safety efforts address the entire food chain, but an essential strategy for preventing foodborne disease is educating consumers and food preparers. To better understand the epidemiology of foodborne disease and to direct prevention efforts, we examined incidence of Salmonella infection, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli infectio...

Introduction The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH), in collaboration with Yale Emerging Infections Program (EIP), receives funding to particpate in the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) and Foodborne Disease Centers for Outbreak Response Enhancement (FoodCORE). FoodNet is an active population-based surveillance network that monitors trends for ten enteric dise...

Because secondary transmission masks the connection between sources and outbreaks, estimating the proportion of foodborne norovirus infections is difficult. We studied whether norovirus genotype frequency distributions (genotype profiles) can enhance detection of the sources of foodborne outbreaks. Control measures differ substantially; therefore, differentiating this transmission mode from per...