Last week, the European Union (EU) published a summary report of zoonotic infection data focused primarily on trends since 2005, and the rise or fall of confirmed campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, listeriosis, and verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli (that is what the EU calls Shiga toxin producing E. coli like O157:H7) cases between 2011 and 2012 in the EU. The report is based on European Food Safety Authority and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control analyses of information submitted by 27 European Union Member States on the occurrence of zoonoses and food-borne outbreaks in 2012. Much has been made in the EU of the decreases in rates of salmonellosis. Is the EU faring better than we are? Do they have practices in place that we should learn from? Or are they in the process of catching up to the US?
The fairest way to make a comparison is to look at illness rates: how many people out of 100,000 got sick?
|
Illness
|
US
|
EU
|
|---|---|---|
| Campylobacteriosis | 14.3 | 55.5 |
| Salmonellosis | 16.42 | 22.2 |
| Listeriosis | 0.25 | 0.41 |
| Pathogenic E. coli | 1.12 (O157); 1.16 (non O157 STEC) | 1.15(VTECs) |
FoodWorld 