Vital Signs Issue: November 2015

Safer Food Saves Lives

Stopping multistate foodborne outbreaks

Multistate outbreaks cause more than half of all deaths in foodborne disease outbreaks despite accounting for only a tiny fraction (3 percent) of reported outbreaks in the United States, according to a new Vital Signs report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The leading causes of multistate outbreaks – Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria – are more dangerous than the leading causes of single-state outbreaks. These three germs, which cause 91 percent of multistate outbreaks, can contaminate widely distributed foods, such as vegetables, beef, chicken and fresh fruits, and end up sickening people in many states.

“Americans should not have to worry about getting sick from the food they eat,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “Top-notch epidemiology and new gene sequencing tools are helping us quickly track down the source of foodborne outbreaks – and together with our national partners we are working with the food industry to prevent them from happening in the first place.”

The Vital Signs report analyzed data from CDC’s Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System during 2010-2014. CDC scientists compared the number of illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths from outbreaks in two or more states with those from outbreaks that occurred in a single state. They found that the 120 multistate outbreaks during the five-year study period were responsible for 11 percent of all foodborne outbreak illnesses, 34 percent of hospitalizations and 56 percent of deaths. An average of 24 multistate outbreaks occurred each year, involving two to 37 states.

Other highlights from the report on multistate foodborne outbreaks during 2010-2014 include:

Salmonella accounted for the most illnesses and hospitalizations and was the cause of the three largest outbreaks, which were traced to eggs, chicken and raw ground tuna.

Listeria caused the most deaths, largely due to an outbreak caused by contaminated cantaloupe in 2011 that killed 33 people.

Imported foods accounted for 18 of the 120 reported outbreaks. Food imported from Mexico was the leading source in these outbreaks, followed by food imported from Turkey.

For information on food recalls and to learn more about how to safely handle and prepare food, consumers can checkwww.foodsafety.gov. They can also consider getting and using store loyalty cards so stores can contact them if they purchase a recalled product.

The Vital Signs report recommends that local, state, and national health agencies work closely with food industries to understand how their foods are produced and distributed to speed multistate outbreak investigations. These investigations can reveal fixable problems that resulted in food becoming contaminated and lessons learned that can help strengthen food safety.

Vital Signs is a CDC report that appears on the first Tuesday of the month as part of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR. The report provides the latest data and information on key health indicators. These are cancer prevention, obesity, tobacco use, motor vehicle passenger safety, prescription drug overdose, HIV/AIDS, alcohol use, healthcare-associated infections, cardiovascular health, teen pregnancy, and food safety.

Vital Signs is a monthly report that appears as part of the CDC journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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