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SPECIAL REPORT
Foodborne Illness Surveillance: A Model for COVID-19 and Other Future Pandemics?
Jim Hartman, MS, REHS
Salmonella , Campylobacter jejuni , and Shigella infections. Yersinia enterocolitica serotype O:3 is thought to be the major cause of chronic joint disease in Belgium. Malabsorption prob- lems arise in 2–3% of pediatric acute gastroen- teritis patients. Hemolytic uremic syndrome follows 4% of shigellosis cases, sometimes from E. coli O157:H7 infections, and infection by potentially any enteric pathogen. Impact of COVID-19 As of May 2022, COVID-19 had killed 1 million people in the U.S., more than all the U.S. combat deaths in both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War (Washing- ton Post Editorial Board, 2022). Life expec- tancy at birth decreased by almost 1 year in 2021 for the second consecutive year in the U.S., according to CDC provisional data. The last decrease of this size was in the 1940s. One half of the decrease was attributed to COVID- 19 (Stobbe, 2022). Drug overdoses, heart dis- ease, suicide, and chronic liver disease also contributed to the decline. Worldwide, “statis- tical analyses suggest … that in 2021, COVID- 19 overtook coronary heart disease to become the world’s leading cause of death. This con- clusion comes not from o¢cial COVID-19 records, but from estimates of excess mortal- ity: that is, deaths that exceed the levels that are expected” (“Missing Data,” 2022). Long COVID Long COVID—a condition in which peo- ple experience symptoms months after an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection seems to have resolved—has been perplexing partly because there are no universally recognized definitions or diagnostic criteria for long COVID, and study designs have been incon- sistent (Ledford, 2022). Its prevalence is often reported vaguely as between 15% and
Abstract Foodborne illness and COVID-19 have obvious dierences, but they also have marked similarities. Both conditions cause significant morbidity and mortality and long-term consequences that often are underappreciated by the public and even by public health professionals. Surveillance for both COVID-19 and foodborne illness have passive population-based platforms that have some value but also some problems. The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) could be a model for surveillance of COVID-19 (and for other future pandemics) and for refining control strategies. Some activities are more dangerous than others for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and although contact tracing could shed light on these risks, local health departments in the U.S. have been too overwhelmed to take advantage of the opportunity. Both foodborne illness and COVID-19 could potentially be better controlled through the application of predictive models based on active surveillance. Keywords: foodborne illness surveillance, public health surveillance, foodborne outbreaks, COVID-19, pandemics
Impacts
cases of Salmonella is reported because the ill person does not seek medical care, a speci- men is not collected for testing, the labora- tory does not perform the necessary test, or the result is not reported to the authorities. Their estimates include attribution of 25% of foodborne illnesses to unknown pathogens, which would not be included in the National Outbreak Reporting System as described by Wikswo et al. (2022). Chronic sequelae Archer and Kvenberg (1985) reviewed reports of rheumatoid, nutritional, and miscellaneous conditions associated with enteric condi- tions. Seronegative spondyloarthropathies (a group of inflammatory rheumatic diseases that include reactive arthritis) follow 2–3% of
Impact of Foodborne Disease Surveillance for foodborne disease out- breaks, including enteric illness outbreaks, has been a core function of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since the 1970s (Wikswo et al., 2022). Moreover, Mead et al. (1999) estimates that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million ill- nesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. One of their data sources was the Cleveland Study (Din- gle et al., 1964), which followed 86 families through several years to track gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. As an example of the methods used by Mead et al. (1999), they used published reports that state only 1 in 38
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Volume 88 • Number 2
https://doi.org/10.70387/001c.144000
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