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Prospects for the Future: Emerging Technologies - Chemical/Biological







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    Statistical Information on Food-borne Disease In Europe microbiological and chemical hazards 2002
    Foodborne disease caused by microbiological hazards is a large and growing public health problem. Most countries with systems for reporting cases of foodborne diseases have documented significant increases over the past few decades in the incidence of diseases caused by micro-organisms in food, including Salmonella spp., Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria monocytogenes or E. coli O157 among others. Chemicals are a significant source of foodborne diseases, although effects are often difficult to link with a particular food. Chemical contaminants in food include natural toxicants such as mycotoxins or environmental contaminants such as dioxins, mercury, lead, and radionuclides. Food additives, pesticide and veterinary drugs are widely used too and it is essential to assure that these uses are safe. Surveillance of foodborne disease and food contamination monitoring are essential tools for risk assessment. For this reason main efforts are directed to the development of adequate meth ods of surveillance of foodborne diseases and food contamination monitoring to provide the necessary data for quantitative microbiological and chemical risk assessment. This paper presents both data on foodborne diseases in the European Region and information on chemical contaminants, additives and residues in foods that may have an adverse impact in health. Future directions to prevent both microbiological and chemical hazards are discussed.
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    Foodborne disease
    Conference Room Document proposed by the World Health Organisation
    2002
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    Foodborne disease takes a major toll on health. Thousands of millions of people fall ill and many die as a result of eating unsafe food. Foodborne disease have implications both on health and development. Numerous outbreaks of foodborne disease have attracted media attention and raised consumer concern. However, the major problems are hidden among huge amounts of sporadic cases and smaller outbreaks. Most countries do not have good reporting systems, and a realistic estimation of the true burden of disease is difficult. WHO estimates 2,1 million deaths from diarrhoea worldwide, mainly caused by contaminated food and/or water. It is estimated that annually up to one third of the population, even in developed countries, suffer from foodborne disease. WHO initiatives to develop better methods to evaluate the foodborne disease burden, including strengthening foodborne disease surveillance, will serve to address this issue in the future.
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    Terrorist Threats to Foods
    Conference Room Document proposed by the World Health Organisation
    2002
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    The potential for terrorists to deliberately contaminate foods must be taken seriously. On 17 January 2002, the WHO Executive Board adopted a resolution (EB109.R5) that recognized the importance of safeguarding food in a global public response to the deliberate use of biological and chemical agents and radionuclear attacks to cause harm. Reducing these threats of sabotage will require an unprecedented degree of co-operation among health, agriculture, and law enforcement agencies of governments; the food industry and others in the private sector; and the public. Public health authorities must not only take the lead in surveillance and incident response for disease and other adverse public health events, they must also strongly support preventive measures along the entire food chain. A substantial involvement of the food industry and others in the private sector in the development and implementation of measures to prevent, detect, and respond to incidents of deliberate contamination is e ssential. Individual consumers must be aware of the potential for deliberate, as well as inadvertent, contamination in their procurement and preparation of food.

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