The World Health Organization is encouraging all countries to look at how whole genome sequencing can be used to improve their foodborne disease surveillance and response system.
Used as part of such a system, whole genome sequencing (WGS) can increase the speed with which illnesses and food contamination are detected and the detail in which…
Relatively minor gastrointestinal illnesses can be serious, even fatal, for people from risk groups including small children, pregnant women, very old people or people with weakened immune systems, prompting a reminder that kitchen hygiene is of vital importance.
In an effort to reduce the number of foodborne infections, the Member States of the European Union…
The death count in South Africa’s listeriosis outbreak — the worst documented outbreak from Listeria monocytogenes in global history — has topped 100.
The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) reported this week that the number of confirmed listeriosis cases is now 852‚ and 107 people have died. The death rate, based on the outcome…
The Environmental Health Specialist (EHS) plays an important role in public health. Environmental health workers perform a down-to-earth job that seeks to protect the public from hazards originating in living environments. The disciplines of environmental health encompass programs to address a wide range of potential human health risks including contaminated water, air, food and the…
About one in every 10 people around the world is sickened by foodborne disease each year. Of those 600 million people, 420,000 die as a result. These numbers are the first global estimates — conservative ones — of foodborne illnesses and were calculated by the World Health Organization (WHO). The comprehensive report, published Thursday,…
