During 2006–2021, Canada saw 55 laboratory-confirmed outbreaks of foodborne botulism, according to a recent article published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) has published its list of priorities for 2024–2028, which includes improving foodborne illness source attribution estimates for Campylobacter, making non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC)a pathogen of focus, and other activities.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently published a summary of a joint investigation of a multi-country foodborne illness outbreak of Salmonella Seftenberg that was possibly linked to cherry-like tomatoes.
A new report on preliminary 2022 data from the U.S. Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) finds that enteric infections in the U.S. caused by eight major foodborne pathogens have generally returned to or exceeded levels observed in 2016–2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a report on the occurrence of foodborne illness risk factors in fast food and full-service restaurants from 2017–2018. The study found FSMS to be the strongest predictor of compliance, with well-developed FSMSs associated with fewer out-of-compliance food safety behaviors/practice than those underdeveloped or non-existent FSMS.
Approximately 40 percent of foodborne illness outbreaks associated with retail food establishments during 2017–2019 were caused by an infectious employee, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Additional control measures for Salmonella contamination by manufacturers of Not ready-to-eat (NRTE) breaded, stuffed chicken products—such as those proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture—could reduce salmonellosis cases associated with such products, according to a recent study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A recent study aiming to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cases of foodborne enteric diseases in Canada found a considerable reduction in cases in 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels.
A study conducted by researchers from the UK Food Standards Agency suggests that international comparisons of foodborne illness rates are “problematic” due to differences in methodologies used.
A recent study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA’s NIFA), has estimated the economic burden of foodborne illnesses linked to flour and flour-based food products in the U.S. from 2001–2021 to be as high as $258 million. Salmonella and Escherichia coli were implicated pathogens.
