Foodborne Diseases Essay

Foodborne diseases are among the most widespread public health problems. Yet only a small proportion of these illnesses come to the notice of health services, and even fewer are investigated. In developing countries even fewer cases are counted, primarily because of poverty and lack of resources for food safety management and food control services. In spite of underreporting, increases in foodborne diseases in many parts of the world and the emergence of new or newly recognized foodborne problems have been identified (Tauxe, 2002).
Microbiological quality control criteria for food globally still rely on standard counts of coliform bacteria that were developed as indicators for fecal contamination. There is now ample documentation that these criteria are insufficient to protect against viral food-borne infections. For example high loads of infectious human pathogenic viruses have been detected in foods at retail that passed all microbiological control criteria, and this has led to discussions about the validity of proof for a recall. It is, therefore, important to understand the fundamental properties of food-borne.
Viruses have emerged as causes of foodborne disease, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Viruses cause a wide range of diseases in plants, animals and humans. These infections do not occur at random: each group of viruses has its own typical host range and cell preference. Viruses were probably always a cause of food borne disease; however with recent developments in detection we are now able to confirm the presence of viruses. Previously, those outbreaks may have been recorded as having an unknown causative agent.
FEATURES OF VIRUSES AS FOODBORNE DISEASE AGENTS
 Viruses whic...

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...nza like illness, rash and neurological symptoms
Hepatitis
Diarrhoea, rash, neurological symptoms

Food borne viruses can be divided in to three main categories (Kapikian, 2000):
1. Viruses that cause gastroenteritis, among these are astrovirus, rotavirus, adenovirus, norovirus (formally Norwalk-like viruses), and SLV (Sapporo-like viruses).
2. Viruses that are transmitted through the fecal-oral route, including hepatitis A and hepatitis E.
3. Viruses that cause other illnesses, including enteroviruses
Although food borne outbreaks are sometimes seen with rotavirus and astrovirus, these viruses typically affect children as opposed to adults. The viruses at the highest risk for food borne transmission are norovirus and hepatitis A virus. The reasons may be due to their extreme stability in the environment and their highly infectious nature (Koopmans et al., 2002).