[Foodborne disease outbreaks around the urban Chilean areas from 2005 to 2010]

Abstract

Background: Foodborne disease outbreaks are one of the main health problems all over the world, which have an extensive impact on human health.

Objective: [corrected] To analyze the foodborne disease outbreaks occurred in Chilean urban area from 2005 to 2010.

Methods: We made a descriptive epidemiologic study. First, criteria were defined and classified according to previous epidemiologic investigations, clinical and environment samples, then. Variables of space, time, place and person were also analyzed.

Results: Among 2,806 reported outbreaks, 2434 (86.7%) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Incidence rate of the period (2005-2010) were 32 cases per 100 inhabitants. A total of 12,196 people were affected, with an average of 5 patients per outbreak. The households (36.2%), restaurants (16.3%), supermarkets (6.3%) free fair (4.4%) have been the most important outbreak areas. The foods involved were seafood (15.4%), fish (15.1%), and fast food (13.5%). The etiologic agents were Salmonella spp, Shigella spp, Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

Conclusions: Outbreaks foodborne diseases are frequents in the Chilean urban area, which make vulnerable a lot of people. The largest numbers happened in the households and were due to bad handling and/or inappropriate storage of the foods.