EMERGING FOODBORNE DISEASES

Abstract

A review of the impact of change in food production, processing, and preparation on emerging foodborne disease problems is followed by the results of a survey which disclosed factors that contributed to 493 foodborne disease outbreaks during the last 10 years. The most significant of 18 identified factors were: failure to properly refrigerate foods; failure to thoroughly heat process foods; infected employees who practice poor personal hygiene; preparing foods a day or more before they are served; incorporating raw (contaminated) ingredients into foods that receive no further cooking; allowing foods to remain at warm (bacterial incubating) temperatures; failure to reheat cooked foods to temperatures that kill vegetative bacteria; cross contamination; and failure to clean and disinfect kitchen or processing plant equipment. The relationships of the identified factors to transmission of specific diseases are also discussed. Effective control of foodborne diseases must be based upon preventing the factors that contribute to foodborne disease outbreaks.