Foodborne zoonoses

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7527.1217

BMJ 2005;331:1217-1218 (26 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7527.1217

Editorial

Foodborne zoonoses

Food poisoning can be serious, and doctors and vets have keyroles in tackling it

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Foodborne disease (food poisoning) tends to be regarded as acomedy illness—not pleasant to have, or talk about, butlittle more than an inconvenience. Yet trivialising foodbornedisease ignores the size of the illness burden: estimates varyfrom 76 million cases of foodborne disease annually in the UnitedStates¹ to 5.4 million in Australia² and 1.3 million in Englandand Wales.³ Three of the major pathogens—Campylobacterspp, Salmonella spp, and Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coliO157 (STEC O157)—are zoonoses (that is, transmitted fromvertebrate animals to humans). As well as causing acute symptomsincluding diarrhoea and vomiting, infection can have long termimplications.

Campylobacter is the principal bacterial cause of gastroenteritisin the developed world. The World Health Organization estimatesthat about 1% of the population of Europe will be infected withCampylobacter spp each year. In England and Wales about 45 000acute cases are diagnosed annually. . . . [Full text of this article]

Sarah J O'Brien, professor of health sciences and epidemiology

Division of Medicine and Neurosciences, University of Manchester School of Medicine, Hope Hospital, Salford M6 8HD (sarah.o'brien@manchester.ac.uk)