How Australia's 'food detectives' track down outbreaks

During National Science Week, the Food Safety Information Council is encouraging Australians to learn how ‘food detectives’ track down outbreaks of foodborne disease.

Cathy Moir, Council Chair, said this year’s National Science Week theme is innovation in science and its role in tracking down food poisoning outbreaks.

According to Moir, there are an estimated 4.67 million cases of food poisoning in Australia each year that result in 47,900 hospitalisations and 38 deaths. Tracking down what caused these cases in the past only involved asking people what they had eaten and trying to link cases.

“More recently, whole genome sequencing (WGS) has emerged as a highly accurate tool, supported by interview information, to identify the viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites that cause foodborne diseases. All of these pathogens have unique DNA patterns that can be compared among infected people and with a suspected food source, if positive samples have been isolated from food,” Moir said.

A recent example of food detective work was an investigation into Listeria monocytogenes in enoki mushrooms in several countries, including Australia. The investigation led to a number of products being recalled from sale in Australia and other countries, as well as the promotion of educational materials around safely consuming enoki mushrooms.

Australia has systems in place to protect consumers from foodborne illness, including the OzFoodNet network, which investigates foodborne disease, describes its epidemiology and identifies ways to minimise it in Australia.

Anyone with a foodborne illness should report it to a local food enforcement contact and keep any available food samples refrigerated as they may be collected for analysis.

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