A new research from the World Health Organization (WHO) has found that around 600 million cases of food-borne enteric disease with 351,000 deaths occurred worldwide in 2010. The study will be published in October.
The research conducted by Food-borne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group's (FERG's) says that enteric disease cases from ingestion of contaminated food numbered 582 million in 2010.
Africa was the site of the highest disease burden, with Southeast Asia second. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, said that in the modern world, contaminated foods anywhere are of concern across the entire food supply chain.
"A local food safety problem can rapidly become an international emergency. Investigation of an outbreak of food-borne disease is vastly more complicated when a single plate or package of food contains ingredients from multiple countries," she said.
The study noted that a 2011 E coli outbreak in Germany caused $1.3 billion in losses to farmers and industry and $236 million in costs for emergency aid.