Report advocates all-Ireland food safety programme
12/04/2005 - 10:36:52The Food Safety Promotion Board safefood today issued a report highlighting the need for a food safety system for the whole island of Ireland.
The report, entitled "Foodborne Infections and Gastrointestinal Diseases on the island of Ireland" for the first time ever, examines the relevant surveillance data collected in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
It points to differences in the recording systems and the levels of infectious gastrointestinal disease in both jurisdictions and suggests key recommendations for harmonising the two surveillance systems.
As a result of the report, safefood also launched an all-island collaborative forum comprising the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) in Northern Ireland and the National Disease Surveillance Centre (NDSC) in the Republic under the umbrella of safefood.
This forum is committed to collaborating with the public health services, north and south, on the prevention and control of intestinal infectious disease on the island.
Ireland suffers 3.2 million cases of acute gastroenteritis each year, or 8,800 new cases each day.
Safefood's Public Health chief specialist Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan said: "About 1.5 million working days are lost each year in Ireland due to acute gastroenteritis. In financial terms, this means we are losing an estimated €173.5m in earnings alone on the island of Ireland as a whole.
"Work towards harmonising the two existing surveillance systems and reporting structures will undoubtedly be of financial benefit."
The report found that Campylobacter (a bacterium primarily from poultry sources) was the single most common bacterial cause of food poisoning both north and south.
E-coli 0157 rates were similar in both jurisdictions, but much lower than Scotland and higher than England and Wales.
Furthermore, exotic gastrointestinal infections from abroad were found to be rare, with only two cases of cholera and seven of typhoid found on the island as a whole for the year under study.
Approximately a quarter of the salmonella cases were found to be imported from abroad, mostly from Mediterranean holiday resorts.
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