Restaurant-related foodborne-illness outbreaks numbered about the same as in 2007, but sickened 2 percent more people in 2008, the most recent period for which such data were available, countering an overall trend to lower outbreaks and illnesses from all sources, federal officials said Thursday.
The “Surveillance of Foodborne Disease Outbreaks – United States, 2008,” released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said restaurants were associated with 452 outbreaks in 2008 that sickened 4,767 people, compared with 450 outbreaks associated with 4,671 illnesses the year before.
While the report provided some comparisons with previous years, report authors noted that such comparison should be made cautiously, since variations occur in outbreak detection, investigation, and reporting.
CDC officials said the 2008 number of outbreaks associated with restaurants or delis represented 52 percent of the 868 outbreaks that year with a known single setting where food was consumed. Food consumed in private homes accounted for 15 percent of such outbreaks, with the rest linked to picnics, fairs, churches, banquet halls and other locations.
In all, the U.S. saw 1,034 foodborne outbreaks in 2008, or about 10 percent fewer than in 2007, when there were 1,151 such incidences, the CDC said. The number of foodborne illnesses in 2008, 23,152 in all, including 1,276 hospitalizations and 22 deaths, was down about 5 percent from 24,400 total illnesses in 2007, the agency said.
The CDC defines a foodborne disease outbreak as the occurrence of two or more similar illnesses resulting from ingestion of a common food. State, local and territorial health department officials use a standard, Internet-based form to voluntarily submit reports of foodborne outbreaks to the CDC.
Foodborne agents from all sources are estimated to sicken about 48 million people annually in the United States, including 9.4 million illnesses from known pathogens, the CDC said.
The report said 479 outbreaks had laboratory-confirmed, single-agent causes. Norovirus was associated with the largest number of such outbreaks, 49 percent of them, and was associated with 46 percent of the illnesses from those outbreaks. Salmonella had the second highest association rate, and was blamed for 23 percent of the incidences and 31 percent of the illnesses, the report said.
Of 218 outbreaks attributed to a food vehicle from all sources — not just restaurants —poultry accounted for the greatest share, 15 percent, of outbreaks. Beef accounted for 14 percent of outbreaks and fin fish 14 percent, CDC officials said. However, the commodities with the highest association with the 7,177 illnesses tied to those outbreaks were fruits and nuts, which were linked to 24 percent of the illnesses; vine-stalk vegetables, 23 percent; and beef, 13 percent.
According to the CDC, the pathogen-commodity pairs responsible for the most outbreaks were norovirus in leafy vegetables, which accounted for 18 outbreaks; ciguatoxin in fin fish, 14 outbreaks; E. coli O157:H7 in beef, 12 outbreaks; and Salmonella in poultry, 11 outbreaks. The pathogen-commodity pairs responsible for the most outbreak-related illnesses, it said, were Salmonella in vine-stalk vegetables, which accounted for 1,604 illnesses, and Salmonella in fruits and nuts, which caused 1,401 illnesses.
Contact Alan J. Liddle at [email protected].
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