What are Some Common Foodborne Illnesses?
Foodborne diseases refer to diseases caused by pathogenic factors such as toxic and harmful substances (including biological pathogens) that enter the body through ingestion. Generally it can be divided into infectious and toxic, including common food poisoning, intestinal infectious diseases, zoonotic infectious diseases, parasitic diseases and diseases caused by chemical toxic and harmful substances. The incidence of food-borne illnesses is at the forefront of the total incidence of various diseases and is the most prominent health problem in the world.
- Foodborne diseases refer to diseases caused by pathogenic factors such as toxic and harmful substances (including biological pathogens) that enter the body through ingestion. Generally it can be divided into infectious and toxic, including common food poisoning, intestinal infectious diseases, zoonotic infectious diseases, parasitic diseases and diseases caused by chemical toxic and harmful substances. The incidence of food-borne illnesses is at the forefront of the total incidence of various diseases and is the most prominent health problem in the world.
Overview of foodborne diseases
- According to the World Health Organization, all pathogenic factors that enter the human body through ingestion are usually infectious or toxic
- Foodborne illness
- In 1984, WHO adopted the term "foodborne diseases" as a formal terminology to replace the historical term "food poisoning" and defined foodborne diseases as "entering the body through food intake" Diseases caused by various pathogenic factors, usually with infectious or toxic properties.
Foodborne disease
- Foodborne disorders can have pathogens, as well as different pathological and clinical manifestations. However, a common characteristic of this type of illness is that it occurs through eating behaviors, which provides an effective way to prevent this kind of disease: strengthen food hygiene supervision and management, advocate reasonable nutrition, control food pollution, and improve food hygiene quality , Can effectively prevent the occurrence of foodborne diseases.
Foodborne Disease Condition
- Illness caused by food contamination is one of the most widespread health problems in the world today. It is reported that the incidence of foodborne illnesses ranks second in the total incidence of various diseases. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Organization (FAO), in 1980 alone, there were approximately one billion cases of acute diarrhea in children under the age of five in Asia, Africa and Latin America, of which 5 million children died. About one in five intestinal infectious diseases in the UK are transmitted by food. Foodborne illness in the United States averages more than 300 outbreaks each year. From 1972 to 1978, there were 80 deaths due to foodborne illness in the United States, including 30 deaths from botulism.
- At present, there is no uniform data for reporting foodborne illness in China. Since the establishment of health and epidemic prevention stations throughout the country in 1953, infectious disease reporting and food poisoning reporting systems have been successively established. The legally reported incidence of infectious diseases in China over the years is led by intestinal infectious diseases. With the development of urban tap water and rural water improvement, In recent years, water-borne outbreaks of intestinal infectious diseases have been rare, mainly transmitted through food. The reported incidence of food poisoning in China has fallen sharply since the Food Hygiene Law (Trial) in 1983, but still accounts for about 7 / 100,000 of the population. In the spring of 1988 in Shanghai, nearly 300,000 people had a hepatitis A pandemic due to the consumption of unclean maggots. This was a typical food-borne disease pandemic. Deaths from puffer fish poisoning occur every year in the southeast coastal area, and the number of deaths in Shanghai in the 1980s alone was about 20 per year. Especially serious is the ban on methanol poisoning caused by illegal food merchants using industrial alcohol to make liquor in recent years. In June and July of 1996, drinking alcohol in Qujing area of Yunnan Province resulted in malignant methanol poisoning, poisoning 192 people. 35 people died; during the Spring Festival in 1997, illegal food production and operation operators in Shandong Shuozhou and Lingtong County of Datong City used methanol to bulk liquor, severe food poisoning caused by methanol, which caused 296 people to be hospitalized for poisoning, of which 27 People die. The above two food poisoning incidents are typical cases of foodborne illness caused by the illegal production of processed foods using non-food ingredients.
Foodborne disease disease characteristics
Foodborne disease food transmission
- All food poisoning is a disease caused by the entry of pathogenic factors into the body using food and water as carriers.
Foodborne disease
- An outbreak of foodborne disease ranges from a few people to hundreds or thousands. In the onset form, most of the microbial food poisonings are collective outbreaks with a long incubation period (6 to 39 hours); non-microbial food poisonings are sporadic or outbreaks with a short incubation period (minutes to hours).
Foodborne disease sporadic
- Chemical food poisoning and some toxic animal and plant food poisoning are mostly sporadic cases, and there is no obvious relationship between the time and place of each case, such as poisonous mushroom poisoning, puffer fish poisoning, and organophosphate poisoning.
Regional foodborne diseases
- Refers to certain foodborne diseases that often occur in a certain area or a certain population. For example, botulinum poisoning is more common in Xinjiang in China; Vibrio parahaemolyticus food poisoning occurs mainly in coastal areas; moldy sugar cane poisoning occurs mostly in northern areas; bovine tapeworm disease occurs mainly in raw or semi-raw beef Custom areas.
Foodborne illness seasonal
- The incidence of certain diseases increases during certain seasons. For example, bacterial food poisoning can occur all year round, but the highest incidence is in summer and autumn; poisonous mushroom and fresh day lily poisoning easily occur in the spring and summer growing season, and moldy sugar cane poisoning mainly occurs in February to May.
4 Foodborne diseases are classified into 4 categories
- 1. Food poisoning: refers to acute and subacute diseases that appear after eating foods that are contaminated with or contain toxic and harmful substances;
- 2. Food-related allergic diseases;
- 3. Food-infected intestinal infectious diseases (such as dysentery), zoonotic diseases (foot-and-mouth disease), parasitic diseases (trichinellosis), etc .;
- 4.Diseases with chronic toxicity as the main feature caused by the second large or long-term small intake of certain toxic and harmful substances.
- Pathogenic factor
- 1. Bacterial foodborne diseases
- 2.Foodborne virus infection
- 3. Foodborne parasite infections
- 4.Foodborne chemical poisoning
- 5.Foodborne mycotoxin poisoning
- 6. Animal toxin poisoning
- 7. Plant toxin poisoning
- Classification by pathogenesis
- 1.Foodborne infections
- 2.Foodborne poisoning
Foodborne disease prevention and treatment
- At present, some developed countries and international organizations have rarely used the concept of food poisoning, and often use "foodborne illness". In the past 20 years, their research on the definition of food-borne diseases, epidemic factors, degree of harm, preventive measures and their impact on social and economic development has made great progress. China has always attached great importance to the prevention and control of food poisoning, and has formed a set of food poisoning report management systems. The Food Sanitation Law has clearly stipulated the contents of food hygiene supervision and management of food poisoning and other food-borne diseases. For historical reasons, the reporting and management of food-borne intestinal infectious diseases and diarrhea are still within the scope of infectious disease reporting. Reports on zoonotic diseases are incomplete. Therefore, food poisoning is only a part of food-borne diseases, and cannot comprehensively and truly reflect the health hazards caused by food insanity and food contamination. How to strengthen the unified management of food-borne diseases, report uniformly, and integrate with international standards in prevention and control measures will be a long-term task for food hygiene workers.
Foodborne Disease Disease Prevention
- 1. Avoid eating in public places without sanitation.
- 2. Buy food with safety factors in a supermarket or a food market with health protection. Do not buy bulk food.
- 3. Fresh food is fully heated before consumption. Do not drink raw water.
- 4. Avoid mixing raw and cooked food, mixing cutting board and kitchen knife, etc., to prevent cross-contamination of raw and cooked food.
- 5. Do not eat raw or semi-raw seafood [1] and meat. Raw fruits and vegetables must be washed.
- 6. Pay attention to the cleanliness of processed cold foods and cold foods.
- 7. Try not to leave meals at each meal.
- 8. The leftover food should be stored below 10 as far as possible, and it must be fully heated before eating.
- 9. Avoid eating home-made pickled foods in summer.
- 10. Develop a good hygiene habit of washing hands before and after meals.