Food-borne infections and intoxications in Europe.

Any attempt to evaluate the prevalence of food-borne diseases in Europe is fraught with difficulty, partly because in some countries such diseases, if reported, are not clearly designated as food-borne, and partly because of the variety in terminology and methods of classification.Nevertheless, it is apparent that, although certain food-borne infections have decreased in prevalence, others have increased during the past decade. This increase has been shown to be related in some countries to the import of certain foodstuffs and fodder from tropical and subtropical regions and has resulted in a general spread of Salmonella infections by a wide variety of serotypes. Food-borne intoxications are predominantly caused by the ingestion of the toxins elaborated by the growth of Staphylococcus aureus in food and by spore-forming bacilli. Botulism is now rare in Europe.While the recent increase in the prevalence of these diseases calls for strict supervision of food products and improved measures of ensuring food hygiene, the efficacy of such steps as may be taken will depend on close co-operation between public health and veterinary public health authorities.