16 December 2010
Each year in the United States about 48 million people (one in six Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases, with salmonella the leading cause of hospitalizations and deaths, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Salmonella was the leading cause of estimated hospitalizations and deaths, responsible for about 28 percent of deaths and 35 percent of hospitalizations due to known pathogens transmitted by food.
About 90 percent of estimated illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths were due to seven pathogens: Salmonella, Norovirus, Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, E.coli O157, Listeria and Clostridium perfringens. The agency said the latest figures are the most accurate to date due to better data and methods used. The data were published Wednesday in two articles in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases (See link).
Of the total estimate of 48 million illnesses annually, CDC estimates that 9.4 million illnesses 55,961 hospitalizations, and 1,351 deaths are due to 31 known foodborne pathogens. The remaining 38 million illnesses result from unspecified agents, which include known agents without enough data to make specific estimates, agents not yet recognized as causing foodborne illness, and agents not yet discovered.