Some major food-borne illnesses declined in 2004.(Clinical Rounds)

The incidence of several major food-borne infections declined markedly between 1996 and 2004, preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest.

For the first time in 2004, the national incidence of Shiga-toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157 infections fell below the Healthy People 2010 goal of 1 case per 100,000 population. In addition, rates of Campylobacter are approaching the target of below 12.3 cases per 100,000, while the 2004 rate of Listeria, 2.7 per 1 million population, is nearly down to the goal of 2.5 cases per million, to be reached by the end of 2005.

But although most of the news from the CDC's 10-site Food-Borne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) was good, there were increases in the incidence of both Vibrio and of two Salmonella serotypes from baseline in 1996-1998 to 2004, according to the CDC (MMWR 2005;54:352-6).

In 2004, a total of 15,806 laboratory-confirmed cases of infections were identified in the FoodNet surveillance area, which included 44.1 million individuals, or 15.2% of the U.S. population.

The three most frequent were Salmonella (6,464 cases), Campylobacter (5,665), and Shigella (2,231), followed by Cryptosporidium (613), STEC O157 (401), Yersinia (173), Vibrio (124), Listeria (120), and Cyclospora (15).

FoodNet cases were part of 239 nationally reported food-borne disease outbreaks, of which 58% were associated with restaurants. Of the 152 outbreaks in which an etiology was reported, the most common were norovirus (57%) and Salmonella (18%).

In 2003, FoodNet collected data on 52 cases of hemolytic-uremic syndrome in children less than 15 years of age (rate 0.6 per 100,000). Of those, 36 (69%) were among those younger than 5 years, the CDC said.