Establishment Of The Classification System For Food Borne Diseases And Analysis On The Present State Of Food Borne Diseases In Chengdu

ObjectiveThis study was conducted to clarify the scope, pathogens, name and codes of food borne diseases(FBD), and to understand the status and trend of FBD in Chengdu city.MethodBased on the definition of FBD by WHO, and combining the present progresses of FBD study, the FBD data pool was established according to ICD-10 system in this study. Then all FBD cases in Chengdu city were collected from multiple sources such as disease surveillance, hygiene supervision, and managing department, by utilizing existent information systems, field investigation, and expert's interview and so on. The present state and trend of FBD in Chengdu were analyzed, and then, some suggestions about the control to FBD were put forward.Results According to the pathogens in ICD-10 system, 90 FBDs could be classified into 7 categories, namely bacterial FBD, viral FBD, chemical FBD, food borne parasites disease, food borne intestinal infectious disease, food borne allergic disease and food borne radiative disease.Only 50 FBDs could be detected by existing surveillance capacity of Chengdu, accounting for 56% of the whole FBD classification system, but within the recent three years, about 27 FBDs in which have never been reported. The accumulative average incidence of known FBD within the recent three years is about 65.41/100,000, and the annual incidence is 59.82/100,000(2004), 58.35/100,000(2005), and 77.88/100,000(2006) respectively. Bacterial diarrhea accounted for 79% of known FBD, and showing the dramatically increasing tendency in the incidence. A total about 93 outbreaks and 1511 persons of food poisoning were reported in the three years. The annual incidence of food poisoning declined steadily, namely 5.4/100,000(2004), 4.92/100,000(2005), and 3.59/100,000 (2006). The major pathogens resulting in food poisoning were bacterial, including Proteus, Salmonella, and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, etc. Restaurants were of the highest frequency of food poisoning. In the 40 FBDs which could not be detected, 34(85%) were due to the insufficient test capacity, and 6(15%) were beyond the routine disease surveillance systems, which included food borne allergic and radiation diseases.Within the recent three years, 50 deaths from FBD were-reported, and food borne intestinal infection is the most important cause. Hepatitis A and infectious diarrhea are the first and the second death cause.ConclusionFBD has emerged as an important and growing public health in Chengdu during the recent years, frequent prevalence and outbreaks caused by diversified pathogens increased steadily. The results of this study indicated that the condition of food safety was not very well in the recent years. The surveillance system for food borne allergic disease and food borne radiative disease in Chengdu should be built up, as well as the food borne parasites disease surveillance system need to be rebuilt too. Furthermore, most of the virus, e.g. Norwalk virus, can not be detected t in Chengdu. More efforts need to be done to improve the FBD surveillance system. It is suggested that government should regulate FBD as legally reported disease, make clear the definition of FBD scope, consummate present surveillance system, establish shared information system, build up laboratory testing capacity, carry out existing disease surveillance system step by step. To control FBD prevalence and outbreaks more effectively, personal health education and food hygienic supervision, especially that for restaurants, should also be emphasized.