Infectious Diseases and Food Poisoning
Information collected from doctors and other sources relating to a range of infectious diseases is collated by the |Environmental Health & Licensing Division and provided weekly to a national surveillance centre. This information is used to identify general trends in the incidence of disease and is monitored by the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Through continuing to work with other government departments, the food industry, enforcement authorities, and through public health campaigns, the FSA is committed to delivering additional food safety and hygiene improvements throughout the food chain and promoting greater awareness of food hygiene principles in the home, so as to achieve further reductions in the levels of food borne illness, in accordance with its |Strategy for 2010-2015.
Only cases of food poisoning or food-borne illness are required to be fully investigated by the Food & Safety Team, to try to establish the likely source of the illness, contain the spread of the problem and prevent recurrence.
Food Poisoning
Food poisoning is the illness caused by eating food contaminated with harmful bacteria. There are many types of food poisoning bacteria that cause a variety of symptoms and which last for different periods of time.
||Food poisoning advice and information sheets
Infectious disease caused by viruses
Viruses are also a common source of human illness. These spread through:
- person-to-person contact with already infected persons
- airborne transmission through aerosol dispersion of infected substances, such as vomit
- and/or contact with already infected materials, such as bed linen and carpets.
