Economic aspects of food-borne outbreaks and their control.

This paper begins with a discussion of the definition of an outbreak. It considers the portion of outbreaks in the general pattern of food-borne infectious disease. The methods used to identify outbreaks are described and the importance of the potential benefits and the economic impact of outbreak recognition and control and are discussed. The paper concludes by illustrating the economic impact of intervention using three infectious diseases botulism, Salmonella and Escherichia coli O157 as case studies of outbreaks.