Off the wire
• Urgent: Gold down on strong U.S. dollar, rate hike speculation  • New U.S. House Speaker vows to advance highway bill with "lots of amendments"  • Russia establishes anti-terror contacts with Syrian opposition forces  • Croatian PM rules out armed conflicts in Balkans if Germany closed borders  • Cyprus, Austria call for solidarity among EU countries to face migration crisis  • Merkel calls for European solution to refugee crisis  • Germany's VW says 800,000 vehicles found with unexplained inconsistencies  • Roundup: President Anastasiades sets time frame for settlement of Cyprus problem  • Commissioner Moscovici reiterates EU support for Greece to overcome debt crisis  • Roundup: Lithuania's World Heritage Curonian Spit in debate over visiting fees  
You are here: 　 Home

U.S. reports 24 multistate foodborne disease outbreaks each year: CDC

Xinhua, November 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

An average of 24 multistate foodborne disease outbreaks occurred each year in the United States, causing more than one third of foodborne illness-related hospitalizations and more than half of all deaths, a U.S. government report said Tuesday.

The report, released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), analyzed data between 2010 and 2014 from the agency's Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System and found 120 multistate outbreaks occurred during the five-year period.

Although these multistate outbreaks accounted for 3 percent of reported foodborne outbreaks, they were responsible for 11 percent (7,929 of 71,747) of illnesses, 34 percent (1,460 of 4,247) of hospitalizations and 56 percent (66 of 118) of deaths.

Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria are the leading pathogens, which the CDC said in a statement are "more dangerous" than the leading causes of single-state outbreaks.

These three germs, which cause 91 percent of multistate outbreaks, can contaminate widely distributed foods, such as vegetables, beef, chicken and fresh fruits, the report said.

Of the three germs, Salmonella accounted for the most illnesses and hospitalizations and was the cause of the three largest outbreaks, which were traced to eggs, chicken and raw ground tuna.

Listeria caused the most deaths, largely due to an outbreak caused by contaminated cantaloupe in 2011 that killed 33 people.

Imported foods accounted for 18 of the 120 reported outbreaks. Food imported from Mexico was the leading source in these outbreaks, followed by food imported from Turkey.

"The report highlights the need for food industries to play a larger role in improving food safety by following best practices for growing, processing, and shipping foods," the CDC said. "In addition, food industries can help stop outbreaks and lessen their impact by keeping detailed records to allow faster tracing of foods from source to destination, by using store loyalty cards to help identify which foods made people sick, and by notifying customers of food recalls." Endit