Food poisoning and salmonella infections in England and Wales, 1969–1972: An analysis of reports to the Public Health Laboratory Service

Abstract

An analysis is presented of reports of food poisoning and salmonella infections receivedby the Public Health Laboratory Service from public health and hospital laboratories for the years 1969–1972. Only those incidents in which a bacterial cause was found were included in the analysis. During the four years 30,940 clinical cases were recorded and 120 patients died. There was little variation from year to year, except for a decrease in 1972. Preliminary information for 1973 is given which shows that this decrease was not maintained. Four-fifths of the cases were due to salmonellas; over half were sporadic cases but 2094 family and 527 general outbreaks were reported. 16% of the reported cases were due to Clostridium welchii and 4% to staphylococci; almost all of these were in 205 general and family outbreaks. Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Bacillus cereus were reported for the first time. The location of the outbreaks is shown. The foods, usually animal protein, implicatedwere traced in 323 outbreaks. The salmonella serotypes most commonly isolated from human cases are listed together with numbers of isolations of these serotypes from human and animal foodstuffs.