New foodborne pathogens continue to emerge, and the globalization of the food supply means that the safety of our food depends on policies and practices in many countries. Public health surveillance of foodborne bacterial pathogens depends on culture, isolation, and subtyping. New diagnostic strategies that bypass culture threaten public health surveillance in the short-term but offer the potential for more refined and rapid outbreak detection in the future. Infectious disease clinicians play a critical role in diagnosis and reporting because they may be the first to suspect a new problem and often link clinical and public health communities.
Keywords: Burden of illness; Food poisoning; Foodborne infections; Imports; Laboratory diagnosis; Molecular subtyping; Outbreak investigations; Trends.
Published by Elsevier Inc.