Authors
Title
Abstract
The comparison of epidemiological data of notified foodborne diseases from twenty five member states of European Union was the aim of this evaluation. The causes analysis of occurrences of foodborne disease information such as: number of sick persons from foodborne disease, causative agents, type of food involved in a foodborne disease incident, place where food was consumed or acquired, place where food was contaminated and factors contributing to the outbreak were traced. The result of conducted analysis was that most of traced foodborne diseases were caused by bacterial origin especially by Salmonella. Cakes, pastry, desserts and ice-creams which contained eggs were the most often involved in foodborne disease outbreaks in Poland, the second were meat products. Eggs, food containing eggs, meat and meat products (including poultry) and the last sweets, cakes, cookies, deserts and ice-cream were products that caused foodborne diseases in all other European countries. Analysed epidemiological data show that farms are places where food is contaminated most often and where foodborne pathogens are introduced into the food chain. The most often place where foodborne diseases were caused were restaurants in European countries. The biggest number of foodborne diseases were result of food consumption in private household in Poland as well as in UE where food with inadequate microbiological quality was eaten. The use of contaminated raw materials of animal origin is the most frequent cause of mass foodborne disease notified in Poland. In this category in UE the breakage of cooling chain in production and distribution of food was the first and the second was usage of contaminated raw products. Because of lack of possibility of leading sanitary inspections in “domestic kitchen” it is indispensable to disseminate the knowledge of food hygiene.
Keywords
foodborne disease, epidemiology of foodborne disease, food