Food involved in disease outbreaks in Germany in 2011

In order to be able to avoid food-borne illnesses, extensive knowledge on the involved foods and the circumstances of food production and food processing are required. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is therefore collecting data on food involved in disease outbreaks since 2005. A disease outbreak is suspected to be food-borne, if two or more persons are taken ill in connection with the same food. Once they have completed all investigations in relation to a food-borne illness outbreak, the state and Federal Armed Forces authorities responsible for food inspection send information on the foods involved to the BfR via the BELA1 reporting system. The reporting procedure is based on the General Administrative Regulation (AVV) on “Zoonoses in the Food Supply Chain”. For the year 2011, the BfR has received information on 90 illness outbreaks from 14 federal states for evaluation. Most of them were caused by salmonella (n=34), followed by noroviruses (n=14) and campylobacter bacteria (n=8). But even bacterial toxins of staphyloccoci and Bacillus cereus and histamine had led to food-borne outbreaks (total: n=12).DE; de; efsa-focal-point@bfr.bund.d