Trends of foodborne diseases in China: lessons from laboratory-based surveillance since 2011

Abstract

Foodborne disease is one of the most important public health issues worldwide. China faces various and unprecedented challenges in all aspects of the food chain. Data from laboratory-based foodborne disease surveillance systems from 2013 to 2016, as well as different regions and ages, can be found along with differences in the patterns of pathogens detected with diverse characteristics. Vibrio parahaemolyticus has been the leading cause of infectious diarrhea in China, especially among adults in coastal regions. Salmonella has been a serious and widely distributed pathogen responsible for substantial socioeconomic burden. Shigella was mostly identified in Northwest China and the inland province (Henan) with less-developed regions among children under 5 years. Data from foodborne disease outbreak reporting system from 2011 to 2016 showed that poisonous animals and plant factors responsible for most deaths were poisonous mushrooms (54.7%) in remote districts in southwest regions. The biological hazard that caused most cases reported (42.3%) was attributed to V. parahaemolyticus, the leading cause of foodborne outbreaks. In this review, we summarize the recent monitoring approach to foodborne diseases in China and compare the results with those in developed countries.

Keywords

foodborne diseases / surveillance / TraNet / China

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Science and Technology Infrastructure Program (No. 2017YFC1601500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81402685). We thank Professor Séamus Fanning and Dr. Juan Wang for the valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jikai Liu, Li Bai, Weiwei Li, Haihong Han, Ping Fu, Xiaochen Ma, Zhenwang Bi, Xiaorong Yang, Xiuli Zhang, Shiqi Zhen, Xiaoling Deng, Xiumei Liu, and Yunchang Guo declare no conflicts of interests. This manuscript is a review article and does not involve a research protocol requiring approval by the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee.

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