A recent study has found livestock meat—specifically pork—to be the most common meat source of foodborne illness outbreaks in China, historically. Various other trends were also revealed by the attribution analysis, which aimed to understand the epidemiological characteristics of foodborne disease outbreaks related to meat and meat products in China from 2002–2017.
Data for the study was collected from the National Foodborne Diseases Surveillance System, which had records of 2,815 outbreaks caused by foodborne diseases related to meat and meat products during the 15-year time period. In total, the foodborne illness outbreaks resulted in 52,122 illnesses, 25,361 hospitalizations, and 96 deaths.